Truth
by puzzlepuzzle
Summary: Two years after the war, Cagalli Yula Atha is an absolute stranger to Athrun Zala.He's left stranded and desperate but he's not about to sit there and do nothing, especially since they have a score to settle.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing of GS/GSD. R&R please.

Note: The follouing traces the whereabouts and the aftermath of those who fought in the Second War. Skip to the next chapter where the real action starts if you please.

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_Excerpts from:_

_PLANT PRMETIME SPECIAL_

_30TH SEPTEMBER_

_C.E. 74_

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_Excerpt from page 1:_

_The Battle of Messiah Ended with an approximated 15,000 casualties and 85,00 deaths. More are expected as the search for survivors ensues. Amongst the issues to be discussed are economic damages that have yet to be estimated, with 279 ZAKU-type mobile weapons beyond repair and 613 GUNDAMs blown to smithereens. More losses will be reflected as the weeks draw by, and already, economists are referring to the Bloody Valentine as the Second Tragedy and the Second Rift of the world. _

_PLANT's council has agreed to open its harvest-granaries to aid the desolate EA regions. The surplus, stored along with frozen water, will be sent to the fifty-seven areas with Coordinator volunteers to aid these places. _

_The body of former PLANT Chairman, Gilbert Dullindal, was found in the remnants of a deserted pod-field. The charred state made it nearly impossible to distinguish his body from two others as all three were mingled in a tight embrace. Tests have concluded, however, that the former chairman died of a gunshot right above is heart._

_

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_

_Excerpt from page 5_

_Lacus Clyne (age 20) has been appointed as Mediator of PLANT and EA. She will enter the office in three days time, according to the popular consensus and the High Council's appeal. She leaves behind a long and established career and blazing accolades as the arguably most well-loved singer for a life of politics to serve her people. She has come of legal age to inherit the millions her deceased father, former PLANT High Council Chairman Siegel Clyne left behind for her in the First War._

_

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_

_Excerpt from page 6_

_Athrun Zala (aged 20), is the newly-appointed Chairman of ETERNITY and will answer directly to ZAFT. _

_He has returned with a hero's welcome to ZAFT, and his honors rightfully restored. He will serve as a council-member of FAITH while straddling his new priorities. However, it is certain that he carries the disreputable past of his father, the former PLANT High Council Chairman Patrick Zala. (Refer to pages 16-19 on ZAFT's views on ETERNITY)_

_Chairman Zala has declined further comment._

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_Excerpt from page 8_

_ORB is well on its way to economic and structural recovery as Cagalli Yula Atha, daughter of the late Uzumi Nara Atha, assumes authority as the United Emirate of Orb's Supreme Commander. She will head her country's combination of governments and royal families in the bid to reclaim peace and establish sound relations between Coordinators and Naturals alike. PLANT has expressed its support with its Chairman stepping up to accept the peace attempts. (refer to page 7)_

_It has been revealed that the Princess of Orb will give her assent to allow the military to join hands with ZAFT. Further discussions are already in full swing._

_The former Supreme Commander of ORB, Yuna Roma Seiran, has been admitted to be tried as a war criminal for flouting war laws in Article 19920-Section C-II (refer to pages 19 onwards). He would have been tried, had his body's mangled remains not been found under the wreck of a WINGDAM.__ Atha was once engaged to Roma Seiran although there is proof otherwise. _

_

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Excerpt from page 12_

_Kira Yamato, pilot of the FREEDOM, has joined ZAFT's commander ranks. He will be employed in re-structural plans and data analysis as a primary occupation. He and Mediator Clyne (refer to page 5) have come clean about their relationship, as have he and Supreme Commander Atha (refer to page 5) as fraternal twins._


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny, which can be a blessing, because if you did, then you'd have legions of ASUCAGA fans waiting to kill you if you didn't get ASUCAGA sorted out.

* * *

Chapter 2

He signed his letter of approval of with a flourish, half-heartedly noting that the title 'Chairman of the ETERNITY Council, Athrun Zala', was becoming more familiar everyday.

A year and a half, closer to two, had passed since the time he had defected from Zaft during the war and was reduced to doing what he did now everyday.

He had returned with a hero's welcome. And now, all that welcomed his eyes were papers, mundane, boring, and mundane. But he persevered. It wasn't half as bad as it could be.

In all truth, it wasn't that his job gave him no satisfaction. It did. It came from seeing the lives around him change as the Coordinators lost the fear that they had of interacting with the Naturals. The mutually defiant stances that the Naturals took to the Coordinators were changing. Athrun Zala, of all people, was witnessing the change. It had come under his efforts and so many others' combined, and the world was being drawn closer to the Plants than expected.

Athrun Zala sighed and briefly massaged his nose bridge. He would have to quit the habit he had recently picked up from reading too many electronic applications and official documents. He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and thinking about the wars he'd survived.

And it hit him, not for the first time in the two years so far, that his thoughts ran to her sometimes. There was always something he lacked- something missing. He'd grown used to that little hollowness somewhere, and he'd tried to sincerely like a few who had enough initiative to like him first. But it always ended strangely and it always felt like he'd let people down somehow. For some, he parted on good terms with, and with some others, this was not quite so. But it didn't matter. He'd given up after a while.

They had been sixteen then, but four years had passed and they were still none the wiser. She was an idiot, but he was more of an idiot still, he thought morosely. He reached for a script a subordinate had written and ignored the glaring errors for the moment.

When Plant's Supreme Council had been re-elected after the Second Bloody Valentine War, he had been summoned and asked to head ETERNITY. At that point, he hadn't even been fully recovered from the injuries he had sustained during the war, but he had accepted. If his father had sinned, done wrong, whatever people wanted to call it in their euphemistic words, Patrick Zala had made a mess and a royal mess at that.

'Imagine having despots following your footsteps,' Athrun thought somberly, 'And in your name, no less.'

Part of him wanted to change the world, even though ideals were better off dreams. But Athrun was a man who knew change was through action. And the other half wanted to atone for sins he hadn't committed but had somehow felt himself to be implicated in. It was quite natural, actually.

He sighed and looked a photograph of his mother, framed and smiling. She had told him, so many times, when he'd been a child, wide-eyed and somehow more carefree than anything he'd ever been before, that Patrick Zala was a busy man.

Busy trying to kill Naturals for killing the Coordinators who had killed Naturals and-

It never stopped, did it?

But he had sworn to, with a few people he trusted his life with.

Athrun had been sworn in along with Lacus, shortly after his former fiancée had become the official mediator of Plant.

Kira had gotten hold of prestige and international acclaim as an engineer and computer science expert shortly after that, and although he had still been an ORB citizen then. It wasn't long, perhaps within the time span of half a year that he'd joined ZAFT and risen right away, up the ranks to join Yzak Joule. He had never said why, but when the great steel walls parted and Athrun saw, from behind Kira's shoulder, a familiar, beautiful face, no longer serene and fair, but astonished and rather white, he had known immediately.

He had watched and smiled, while Lacus had ran into Kira's waiting arms, unafraid to fling her arms around her lover as he caught her joyfully and pressed her to him, afraid to let go.

At that time, Athrun had sill been in ORB's uniform, he had seen a few skeptical glances as he had entered the High Council Chamber, but then he'd gone back to ZAFT a week after that. The episode still made him shrug. Surely he wasn't expected to show up in a ripped red uniform, PLANT chamber or not?

Kira still managed to be with Lacus without anyone commenting on anything. Perhaps this was because they had already come out open after the second war and the public had obviously accepted their choice, encouraged it, even.

And that, naturally, left the last of the people he would have died for and had nearly come close to dying for by the time the peace treaty was well on its way after the horrific Second War.

Athrun tried not to think of how successful Cagalli had become, perhaps even more so than Lacus, simply because he didn't trust himself anymore even after these two years, not when it had anything to do with Cagalli Yula Atha.

Every day when he looked into the mirror and saw his own green eyes staring back at him, he desperately tried not to think of how she had once idly commented about his eyes being as green as the peppers she had tried to eat with her kebabs.

She had always been so unromantically honest.

Athrun could still remember how been tired she had been that day, how unconsciously she had been resting her head on his shoulder with her blonde hair fanned out everywhere, soft, reaching just above her shoulders like a silky nest and smelling of strawberries and something strangely sweet for her tomboyish manners. He'd been surprised at the physical contact, she was quite shy, even in the most unexpected of ways, but then he realized that it had been unconscious. He'd remained in a tranquil sort of silence, and then she'd suddenly wisecracked that green peppers were a 'nice change from chilli sauce, but he had caught her drinking more water than usual and trying not to gag soon after that.

He had almost mercilessly teased her for ages about that when he had lived with her as Alex Dino. She had allowed him to stay with her in ORB, she'd offered it even, somehow able to detect that he was unwilling to go but unwilling to bring her trouble. But she'd insisted that he stay, and he had felt compelled to, not because of duty then, but because he _wanted_ to. He wanted to be with her.

Now, Athrun's eyes scanned over his hands. They were clenched.

What was wrong with him today?

Granted, he had those slips sometimes, when he thought of her upon seeing something that reminded him of her fiery temper, the blazing golden and amber her eyes seemed to be made of, things like that. But today- it was going too far already.

Then he put his head in his hands and felt as hollow as he had ever been. Athrun Zala was a desperate person, desperate for her to stay out of his mind as far as he was concerned. He could barely afford wasting away by thinking of her while his brain cells deactivated and strayed away from the Himalayas Mountains of paperwork his desk was attracting. And yet, he knew it was a lie somewhere. He wanted her out of his mind, but he wanted her with him.

A soft smile rearranged itself on his face. He hadn't smiled like this for so long, that sort of unknowing, gentleness that worked its way around. Each time he smiled for a picture, it was a practiced one. Practiced to be natural. He wanted her with him.

Perhaps he could tell her what he had been doing since they'd left without her, for the battle at Messiah. Perhaps he would be able to make her laugh, smile for him, look at him with that queer, lovely smile of hers and the shy, bright eyes and perhaps, just perhaps-

Athrun growled in frustration and yanked a few strands of midnight hair from his scalp. And as the slight tinges of pain shot in, he frowned, immediately regretting his rash actions and vaguely thinking how he would have to go for intensive eye and scalp surgery in two years' time.

He stood up and promptly began to circle the large, admittedly spacious office like a hawk, making the area feel small and constricted.

An abrupt knock then interrupted his rather scattered thoughts and made him spring into a stiff posture that reminded him forcibly of the way he had been trained to spring into a salute the minute a superior had barked instructions.

Jenny, wait, no Janie, or was it Jaedie popped into the room, her uniform crisp and freshly ironed. She then flashed him her megawatt smile that made him cringe inwardly as he stiffly gestured for her to put down the new additions of paper enemies on his desk.

Staring at an interesting spot on his desk because he really didn't want to look at her, Athrun proceeded to quietly voice a thought that his desk was groaning under the agony of extra weight, but her puzzled look that wired in a mental picture of a cow getting milked made him shake his head dejectedly and say, ' forget it.'.

Athrun was a hundred percent sure Kira would have gotten the same image too, especially since they had milked the cow together as children when their school had brought them on a outdoor trip to a farm where they had gotten to become best friends at six.

And a smirk twitched on his lips while his secretary droned on about something trivial until he knew, quite assuredly, that he wasn't listening.

If there was one thing his father had done right, he thought sadly, it would have been sending him to a pre-school where he had met Kira when they were five.

After the battle at Messiah, he hadn't met Kira as often as he would have liked to do so. He had taken on a new role and so had Kira, but there had been times when he had arranged to meet Kira by the beach. As busy as both of them were, work was one thing and living was another, but for now…

'Good morning Chairman Zala!" his secretary chirped energetically, and he aped her greeting in a monotone, automatically cutting himself off before he greeted her as ' Chairman Zala' in an effort to be polite.

Athrun had replaced Jae-something's predecessor a month straight after he had come into office, something he half-regretted now. The secretary, Yulia, assigned to him when he first headed ETERNITY had been quiet and a little meek, rather mousy in a weak, not quite unattractive manner, alluring for men who liked their wives to double as maids. But the current one he had now seemed to be powered on Energizer batteries he recommended Lacus to use for her haros to keep them active at all times.

With Jaedie's predecessor, he had been quite happy to simply ignore her while she crept about like a little ghost and he forcefully concentrated on his work the way a bull harnessed to a plough would.

Two years ago, Heine Westenfluss had been his drinking partner, but that was only an excuse for Athrun to escape the clutches of his 'fiancée'. He really didn't want to be associated with Mia Campbell, not when she had Lacus' face and a body that was decidedly not the former girl's, and for the first time in a long time, he had gone and gotten himself roaring drunk.

They'd started off with him eagerly snatching a mug and draining it, as if to quench his thirst after he'd run a long way to meet Heine. Heine had watched with an inquisitive expression, eyebrows in danger of disappearing into his hairline, as Athrun had held the empty glass up, triumphant, as Mia pouted and swept off.

At that time, he had already been away from Cagalli for nearly half a year, and he knew he told Heine that while in a drunken stupor. He was really quite sure that Heine had basically heard him ramble and babble too much about her, certainly more than what Athrun might have said if he weren't drunk, but Heine had been a real friend, and he hadn't mentioned a single syllable of anything to do with Cagalli to Athrun even after that embarrassing night of drunk rambling.

The very next morning, Athrun had woken up with the alcohol still surging through his body and a foreign buzz behind his head, and then he had seen a strange lump next to him. With a mounting, ominous fear, Athrun had reeled away the blankets to find Mia Campbell curled up next to him, snoring lightly with her wet, pink lips parted, as if expecting a kiss. He had nearly gone into an actue stage of hyperventilation, his face stained with the color of shock and subsequent embarrassment. And Luna had knocked and he had been in his shorts and a thin shirt and Mia in that décolleté-friendly, pink, fur-lined-

"Oh God," Athrun said in a horribly muffled sort of trance, thinking about the past. His secretary, unaware of the things that were running through her superior's head in chaos, merely continued on chirping his list of planned events in the airtight schedule.

Heine had been his first drinking partner, and it had become Yzak after the Second War. Yzak wasn't quite a good choice as a drinking partner, Athrun was sure he would go home and tell everything Athrun had said to his beloved Shiho, but he didn't quite care anymore. Having Yzak as a drinking partner would most likely land you in a bar-brawl or some truly embarrassing situation, but it was by far, the better alternative next to having to keep all his woes to himself.

And then Athrun had gone out to drink with Yzak about four months ago and he had arrived in the morning roaring drunk but still miraculously able to keep from slurring his sentences and appearing generally sane. Yzak, on the other hand, began to slur his words, peppering them in broken French and swearing so much, the passerbys had probably diagnosed him as having Tourette's syndrome. Athrun was a charmed drinker, but then he had always been quite a good drinker since he had been about seventeen.

But when Yulia had stepped into the office, he had, with the half-bright, half-idiotic eyes liquor had given him, seen Cagalli staring right at him with her intense amber eyes and blonde hair. It didn't help that his then-secretary had tripped over a step as she closed the door, and had landed rather ungainly, and he had been compelled to stand up so he could help her up. She had no doubt been embarrassed by her clumsiness and had looked right into his face, not averting her eyes for once, and her lips were moist and her blonde hair swept into her face.

She wasn't smiling or laughing, just staring at him. So he had gotten up relatively steadily and moved towards her, trying to get close to her to pull her to him, wondering why she wouldn't laugh or smile for him, then he walked straight into the wall, still wondering why she wasn't smiling but looking very bewildered. In retrospect, Yulia Arthur never laughed or smiled anyway, she just looked blank half the time.

The very next day, he promoted his secretary, effectively transferring her out of his office and out of his sight.

He couldn't take the personal jab at him that the secretary before Jae-something had short blonde hair which was suspiciously unruly and windswept. To top it all of, the former secretary's name had been Yulia Arthur. Yula Atha. A little too close for comfort, he thought sourly, and stared absently at the current brown-haired secretary, 'Jaedie', who was reading his lists of assignments for the day.

Each time Yulia had turned her back towards him as she made her way out of his office, the memory had been entirely too familiar, and he had to swallow a bitter disappointment each time he viewed her from the back. The coffee that the former secretary had made was too strong and too sweet, but it was always tongue-scalding and intensely hot, once more, a jolt back to memory lane that he wasn't too sure he appreciated entirely.

It was far too easy to imagine that the person who had left the steaming mug on the table was not Yulia but someone very different.

The coffee _she_ had once made for him when he had woken up in a room next to hers as Alex Dino, the bodyguard, had burnt his tongue to a quivering painful mass and left him floundering and panting comically like a dog. Her laugh, channelled at his carelessness in not waiting for it to cool somewhat was still fresh in his memory, and he felt a rising irritation that his Coordinator-powered brain was still selective in its memory function.

Heck, his current secretary's name was still trying to formulate itself form the smithereens of memory pieces scattered everywhere, and all he could remember was her laugh?

"Ugh," he said aloud as he sipped the coffee. Jae-something rolled her eyes, apparently thinking her coffee wasn't up to his expectations yet again. She tossed her hair angrily, formerly long but now as short as her predecessor's, and he thanked the gods that her hair was distressingly brown and not gold like her predecessor's and that girl's hair colour.

"Is that the fashion now, short hair?" he muttered as he returned to his documents. Jenny or Jaeda, whatever her dratted name was simply preened and handed him a letter sealed with gold wax. Apparently, she didn't care what he thought of her hairstyle, but he had caught her saying to the receptionist below that she thought Chairman Zala's hair length was more suited for girls.

Not that he cared either, he wasn't about to trim it just to please a secretary whose name he couldn't even remember.

And that was that, he thought, as she flipped a short tassel the way he had seen her do in front of the new, handsome clerk downstairs, and strutted out like a haughty hen that had just laid a dozen eggs and would get praised by the cockerel or the farmer or something damned stupid like that. He put his head into his hands, frustrated at the lack of concentration for the morning, and then Athrun cursed in the most colourful language he could muster, something rather out of character and deviant from his normal composure. And this was something he realized there and then, Athrun Zala would never do when meeting the other officials.

And then he tried to erase the thoughts of the girl who had flipped her hair in the most unadulterated way he had ever seen to stop it from being a nuisance as she fired her bazookas with absolute ease while shouting orders to Kisaka.

What had she been like then? Sylph-like under her heavy battle-equipment? Yes. He had seen her by the fireside, huddling under the blanket he had tossed her, her not fully-developed, slightly boyish but decidedly female form not quite hidden by the soft folds of the cloth, and he had seen how rich with promise it had been, he had witnessed in the years to come, how subtle the changes had been, but how perfect she had become. But that night, they had been enemies, unaware of what the future held for them. Ashamed to be seen weak, but not strong enough to fight the cold of the night, she had glared at him with weary, hunted eyes, she could not trust him, not when she needed to keep awake in case the enemy, him, struck suddenly. She had a pretty face, no doubt, delicate at a closer glance, but with that touch of defiance and potential willfulness molded in her fine jaw-

He realized what he had been doing, and swore again. Then he turned back to the invitation, reading the contents with a raised eyebrow, re-reading the key words like his mother had taught him to do to extract information quicker than most, and then re-read everything once more.

_You are hereby cordially invited to the ORB/EA and PLANT GALA exactly one week from now, where your presence is highly valued and requested. _

_The details of the Gala are found in the extract below and Lacus Clyne, mediator of EA and PLANT relations, and Siegfred Rohm, head ambassador of EA, sincerely desires for you to be present. _

_Transport to Earth __Alliance__'s convention hall in __Berlin__ is necessary in advance as we foresee an influx of ambassadors arriving if the schedule attached below is not followed as accurately as possible. _

_Please refer to the insert below and attend with all details met and note that the transport on the twentieth of June PLANT has provided will take you directly to the house-cum-office EA has provided for all delegates, ambassadors and officials from ORB, EA and PLANT._

He resumed to swearing in the most satisfying way he could manage and kicked his darned desk for extra effect. Jaedie or something to that effect marched in and concernedly asked if anything was the matter, and as if in retaliation for its former abuse, the desk creaked and gave way, throwing up the piles of paper and documents in the air that cascaded down everywhere.

As the paper cascaded down and blocked parts of his vision like those snow-white, blindingly beautiful doves that danced in the air, he thought he saw Cagalli standing in front of him with her hands on her hips and laughing, then he realised it was his not-yet-named secretary who was laughing at him.

Feeling remarkably bad-tempered, he madly swiped down a random piece and pinned it to the ground, trying to extract his revenge from the helpless paper. He silently noted that his secretary had stopped laughing and looking edgy in case he got angry with her. He straightened, trying to regain his normality, but then he couldn't help the thought that if she were Cagalli, she would have been already been crouching down to where he was and still laughing at him before he tackled her.

And they might have then indulged in those playful but still wildly intense tussles in a strange parody of the way they'd fought for elusive survival on that abandoned island, the way he leapt with his knife gleaming hungrily for the silk of her flesh and the blood of her white throat, and how shaken he had been to realize that the soldier was a girl, and a very beautiful and unpredictable one at that.

"Damn it!" he swore.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny, which can be a blessing, because if you did, then you'd have legions of ASUCAGA fans waiting to kill you if you didn't get ASUCAGA sorted out.

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Chapter 3 

"Damn it!" he swore, as if for the thousandth time, as he glared at his long-time best friend.

In response, his best friend merely laughed a warm throaty sound that mollified Athrun only somewhat. Then Kira quirked his lips in a caricature of a smirk as he straightened his own tie once more and double-checked his reflection to make sure it was indeed the dashing, debonair image he saw.

Berlin was in the midst of autumn, crisp and cruel in its aching beauty, possessing nearly every tree that stood in the fields and forests, waited patiently for the winds to become stronger, and for their brown leaves, once so green and alluring, now orange and playful. These would become brown and brittle soon.

And what Athrun had seen when he stepped down from the shuttle had pleased him immensely, although he couldn't quite explain why. The other PLANT delegates had loved the place too, and Athrun had spotted one of them rolling around in the leaves like an insane dog which had just been taken off its leash.

He understood why.

The air around him was perfumed with the orange glow, and he felt like a child trapped somewhere in a body that was rippled and decidedly not a child's.

Perhaps it was that the crackling reds and oranges of the trees were a novelty compared to the Plants' carefully tampered and controlled climates where he had lived for most of his life. A nice, albeit boring sort of pattern, each day, each month, each year.

He smiled wryly- almost like his life after the war.

He tightened the black scarf around his neck, and looked up just in time to see an EA ambassador, a longtime acquaintance, rushing forward eagerly, her face rosy in the cold, to greet them.

She had been a longtime acquaintance, and upon the arrival, she now introduced him to her cousin, who had, she revealed, 'only just started working for the government here'. Athrun shook hands politely, as the rest did, and he noticed how the girl, unlike her elder, perhaps more experienced cousin, had eyes that widened immediately as he offered his hand, and she took it, trembling with as if she had the ague. This cousin was young and a blushing, wide-eyed fixture behind them as they walked, and Athrun briefly wondered if girls her age were all shy like her. He had seen enough of them to have come to the conclusion.

His mind was reeling in, piece by piece, color by color, the sensations of the world around him and the season he was somehow thrust into, like a single drop of white paint on a piece of orange canvas, vivid and out of place. His breath rose in great cotton puffs, and he smiled unconsciously.

Yet, the weather was unpredictable half the time, or so Kira had told him. His best friend dealt with the climate's problem while working for most of the time when Kira was on the job. If Kira didn't know what Berlin's climate was like, then nobody would. Athrun wasn't quite concerned that the weather was unpredictable; he was more interested in the fact that Kira had become rather unpredictable himself.

Kira, the rather inconsistent, shy boy had somehow inexplicably transformed into a male peacock, and now he was helping Athrun to straighten his tie! Athrun could hardly believe his eyes. If Athrun had not exhausted his vocabulary used for swearing in the last week or so, he would have used a few expletives to describe his shock at discovering Kira in such ease while being stuffed into an itchy, scratchy black suit.

"What has Lacus been doing to you?" he cried as he flailed his arms in a futile bid to protest as his laughing friend playfully pinned his arms backwards so that Athrun's jacket would be straightened.

The Gala was in an hour's time, but he had arrived early at the hotel to see his dear friends once more. Of course, he was a little edgy since it was possible that his secretary would suspect why he had turned up so early for a function when he usually took his time to dilly-dally back in the Plants. His secretary had wanted more time to get ready, although she had been quite dodgy when she told him that. He was sure she wanted to make a good impression on some important people today, enough of a good impression, Athrun thought dryly, for her to come to work with crushed clothes that reeked of a man's cologne and hair that implied that hands had been run through it for hours at an end.

Lacus, busy with her own preparations, had not made an appearance as of yet, but knowing her, Athrun swore she would be the belle of the ball, she always was. She had never failed since her debut, she was Lacus Clyne, untouchable, ethereal, and above the stature of any woman or girl.

And Athrun chuckled to himself, imagining her vexation during rehearsals. Her voice was a gift yes, but her talent was not without hours of practice for the perfection and sweet clarity it had achieved. And her feet, tiny like doves, were shod in pretty shoes and ruby blisters. She practiced to reap the fruits of her labour- she wasn't perfect as naturally as the world deemed her to be. But nobody really knew her.

Lacus Clyne had burst onto PLANT's media scene when she had only been twelve after her talent had been uncovered, and she had bewitched the Coordinators and became a leader in her own right since then. Athrun had never expected that she would be the link to Kira and him in the chaos of the First War, but he was grateful to her for that. She knew that too, although they never said anything. They knew, and that was always sufficient. He had loved her, but she had never quite, and the shock of the realization had faded quickly enough for Athrun to realize that he had never quite loved deeply as well. The first cut wasn't always the deepest.

Now glancing back at Kira, he saw that his friend was answering a call a little distance away in extremely hushed tones, and Athrun immediately suspected that it was Cagalli he was speaking to.

He sighed and tried to look away from Kira. When he had gotten the letter, he knew that she would be invited too, for it would have been a travesty not to have invited ORB's Supreme leader. He had considered not turning up, but he couldn't refuse to not attend to the gala, that would have been an insane decision that would have cost him much explaining to the PLANT Supreme Council. Between the potential chance of seeing Cagalli, someone he had parted relatively well from, and an afternoon of explanations, he had chosen the former.

So he had been edgy all day, not because he didn't want to see her again, but because he was wary of something he couldn't predict or analyse. The unknown was a thorn in his flesh. He had been like that all his life. Kira knew it, and he knew it himself.

Kira had turned out beautifully, decked in a well-tailored, dark-navy suit that Athrun was similarly wearing, except Athrun's was dark maroon. Both men were at ease in their clothes after the practice in all their respective functions, but Athrun was queerly in discomfort when he thought Kira wasn't watching, ill at ease not in his suit, but in his own skin.

Kira paused; his laughter had ceased, and glanced thoughtfully at his best friend. Athrun was as dashing as ever, he noted, but he had sweat plastered to his forehead, making his bangs stick out at funny angles that created an unwelcome comical effect. Of course that would eventually be fixed, Athrun Zala hadn't been placed into the list of best-dressed, most desirable politicians just to arrive at the year's most important even with uncombed bangs.

Noticing his silent distress, Kira stared hard at his friend's fists balled in the deep pockets lined with piping. He was fingering something in his pocket feverishly, not nervously, because Athrun Zala would never be seen nervous by anyone. But his handsome face had something inscrutable and somehow wistful all at once.

And Kira concentrated hard, and then, only then, he realised it was something the index and thumb could entwine itself around, something shaped like a ring.

"A ring?" he said out loud, and blissfully watched a deep plum colour Athrun's pale cheeks very slightly. Kira's lips twitched, but he raised his eyebrows, waiting for an answer.

"N-no, not that, just something like a..."

"A ring, Athrun, a ring."

"No, it's not a ring, Kira, it's a..."

"Ring, Athrun, a ring."

"Alright, damnit, it's a ring."

Sighing quietly for a reason he could not quite understand even himself, Kira strode over to his friend and patted his back a bit awkwardly. He scarcely knew what to say, and he suspected then, neither did Athrun. But the implications of the silence lay volatile and heavy in the air.

His friend's face was so heated it would have fried an egg, sunny-side up, in fact, and Kira was wee-convinced and quite sure he knew what it was caused by. He sighed again, but this time whole-heartedly and he desperately tried to ignore the slight aching in his chest when he glanced at Athrun's eyes, empty but somehow, vaguely, just vaguely dejected.

He thought of testing the waters a little and moved closer to Athrun's side.

"She may not be coming tonight, you know," Kira murmured emotionlessly near Athrun's ears, and then inwardly praised himself for making the right decision when he viewed his friend's shoulders from slumping.

A minute later though, Athrun's shoulders were squared, his posture perfect, and his fingers suddenly freed from the deadlock deep in his pocket, and then he turned very smartly on his heel and marched out a trifle bit stiffly. The dark suit he wore lent him a striking cut as he appeared with a smile, practiced and ready to welcome the delegates and officials from ORB and PLANT. Kira watched his friend disappear in the midst out the crowd while the cameras clicked and took pictures of ETERNITY's Chairman, then shrugged and followed suit.

Orchestrated music was echoing across the room and beautifully-dressed men and women were gliding everywhere to make small talk and enjoy themselves. They would then dine and dance while making important decisions amongst themselves on the course of action in economic, social and political areas that would have one main aim of peace that was everlasting.

"All to foster good relations among the leaders so the people can follow suit," murmured Kira, as he parted ways from Athrun and went to Lacus' side.

The songstress was surrounded by a barrier of cameras and journalists, she was barely visible save for the glimpses of pink hair and her glorious smile that had captured the hearts of thousands, including Athrun's best friend's.

He noted that Kira had suddenly just realised the cameras would turn their attention on him if he appeared and was trying to sneak away, but Lacus' voice was somehow heard over the cacophony as she called out brightly, "Ah, there he is!"

Then the cameras were surrounding his friend too and about to leave Lacus alone for some air to breathe, but Kira threw her an evil glare with his narrowed eyes, eyes that glittered violet and were sly and cat-like, and then he smiled winsomely before pulling her to him so she couldn't escape, not scot-free, at least, from all the cameras she had turned on him.

Athrun caught his friend mouthing to him, "Misery loves a companion," and he smirked at Kira.

"What did you say, sir?" exclaimed a reporter, excitedly gesticulating and brandishing his pen like a sword.

Athrun smirked.

"Oh, I said I sincerely hope everyone here will enjoy tonight," Kira replied smoothly, Lacus probably still hanging off his arm even if Athrun could not quite see properly.

Turning away in amusement, Athrun made for a safe area but was caught too.

"Chairman Zala! Would you like to comment on how this evening is going?" cried a reporter, obviously sent in to do coverage and report on the wonderful evening to the people. Athrun allowed the reporter a smile that he had practised for ages, automatically checking that not too many teeth were present for a commercial look and not too few teeth were shown that would inevitably give a sly smile.

He always thought his expressions through, it was a science where politics was concerned, and if it was a science, Athrun would be damned if he didn't get it down perfect. But if it was something books or instructors couldn't teach, well he'd just be half-assing it like he always did. Then he recalled the time he had proposed in a haphazard manner to her, or rather, tried to, and his smile dimmed a little.

His smile was perfect anyway, he thought dully, perfect for the media's coverage and an entirely impersonal one that proved how they did not deserve to see his real smile. There was no way in this world that he could be free from any cares as he wanted to be, but he didn't mind that so much. He had expected it anyway. One did not just become a PLANT leader by shirking all their heavy responsibilities, no matte how young their shoulders were when the responsibilities were herded there. Besides, thirteen was the official age for Coordinators, so in retrospect, he was middle-aged at the ripe old age of twenty.

He laughed humourlessly to himself and watched the cameras suddenly turn towards another and applause erupt throughout the room.

Lacus, resplendent in a pastel-green gown, floated towards him, with Kira taken captive by some other important officials that wanted to hear his opinion on new machinery that Athrun would have liked to hear about if they hadn't been around. He stared at Lacus with dull eyes, trying to mute the jolt of pain that gushed through him, unwanted, but like an old scar being reopened. The pastel green was foamy and a beautiful colour, and Lacus wore it well, but it wasn't her colour. No. Not hers.

Had she protested vehemently and slightly violently as her body had been swathed in the beautiful material and her hair pulled back to reveal her delicate features, features that sent the hearts of the men pounding in their chests?

No.

Because Lacus Clyne wasn't _her_.

Quite similarly to Kira, Athrun couldn't care less what Lacus wore, and he knew his friend thought she looked perfect in everything, especially after the one disastrous shopping trip at Copernicus. She had repeatedly changed outfits in a bid to find one that Kira liked, but Kira had simply smiled at everything and nodded and then said she looked nice in everything. He had sounded so sincere that it was quite inevitable for Lacus to be a little suspicious that Kira couldn't care less.

In fact, she had been more or less accurate in her suspicions, although the implications weren't dire, quite the opposite actually. Athrun supposed the lack of interest in her outfits that Kira showed was due to the fact that he adored Lacus so much that the clothes she wore didn't quite make a difference.

Now she wore green, but the colour didn't belong on her. He remembered a heated conversation a few years ago and felt his hands grow cold and numb as if he were ouside in the bitter cold while the memory pervaded his mind.

"_Are you going to wear that?" he hissed, as she joined him on the travellator in Armory One decked in a plum-coloured Emir suit that did nothing to emphasis her feminity._

"_Well, why not? I mean, this is official right?" she cried as her blonde hair stood up on ends like they had a life of their own while she bristled in indignation._

"_I thought you'd wear a dress or something…" he had retorted, but he had been silenced by a rather upset glare that made him unsettled somewhat._

Shifting uncomfortably, Athrun transferred his weight to another foot and cursed the way he had handled the conversation a year ago. If only he had told her how much he wanted to see her in the pastel green gown and not criticised her choice of the Emir's suit.

"Athrun?" Lacus' voice, as sweet as a tinkling bell, but semi-anxious, interrupted his thoughts. He snapped back into attention and peeped at her through his eyelashes, inwardly warning himself not to think of Cagalli anymore when he saw Lacus dressed in the very colour that she had once wore.

He knelt, and she proffered her hand, and he kissed it, as was the custom. They had come from respectable families, this was something they had been reared to do, something ingrained in them like an instinct. And then he straightened and she smiled innocently.

Her eyes were very wide and beautiful. He had heard of women who took the essence of Belladonna to dilate their eyes- Lacus would have no need for that. Her lips were delicately-pressed, like a petal of a plum blossom had landed on her white face as her mouth, but he found that her lips weren't as full and as-

He shook his head. She did not seem to see, but she must have, for she smiled again. Her smile was secretive now.

And Lacus spun in a circle, swirling and showing off the stunning pastel-green material before striking a pose.

"How does this look?" she enquired sweetly, as her pink haro bounced maniacally around them. It was spouting some weird misquotes that Athrun had never dreamt of putting and encoding in the mechanical toy, and he was pretty sure Kira had done it for fun.

Athrun had a talent for tinkering, but Kira was the real genius at modulating and revamping. The rotound object flew at Athrun, and as was customary, he caught it as it struggled and flapped its ears angrily.

Noticing how she was waiting patiently for him to say something or make some kind of reaction, Athrun flashed a genuine smile at the lovely songstress who beamed at him and simultaneously reached for his cold hands, guiding him towards the dance floor and waving at Kira who smiled and waved back at them.

"No jealously there," Athrun commented in an attempt to make conversation.

Lacus merely grinned and replied placidly, "Is there a need for any?"

The orchestra was trotting out a familiar mazurka he had learnt in his childhood during etiquette class that his memory had somehow dredged out especially for the event. His feet were mechanical and precise as he guided Lacus through the waltz, doing the triple-step as precisely as he would have fired a shot into a target. The rubato the orchestra had swept itself into, the pitful of oboes and horns now caressing the night air, was not being done justice by his feelingless steps. But he could not muster the longing and the bright beauty the strings were singing to the world, begging him to listen to.

Bit by bit, he lost his concentration and Lacus seemed to notice because she took the lead after that. The girl seemed to be genuinely enjoying herself as she hummed the piece they were dancing to, and she seemed happy enough to steer him around while he woodenly followed her rhythm and steps. He was lost in thought, trapped in a memory of an excited thirteen-year-old proudly announcing to his father that he had been made a redcoat only to have his father coldly brush him off. Like a fly.

The guests were drinking champagne from glasses- there were a hundred smei-globes of clear bubbles moving in the endless stretch of the halls. He wondered if it tasted as sweet as the air it perfumed.

His eyes, as a child, had been wider and more innocent then. After that, they had narrowed a little, but still permanently. Nicol had died with wide and innocent eyes and hands that seemed to wash off the blood they had drawn in the war by sitting down at the piano and bringing music forth.

Then he placed where the piece had come from, hauntingly lilting, familiar and heart wrenchingly lyrical.

Nicol had been playing it in the room the Redcoats used exclusively, before the news had interrupted his playing and the announcement came for them to sortie under Le Creuset's command to steal the gundams hidden in Heliopolis. Along the way, Athrun had killed eight EA soldiers and was about to kill Murrue Ramius to take the Strike, which Rusty had failed to do and died trying to finish.

The song had come to an end, and the reporters were about to rest their fanatic, trigger-happy fingers for a moment before resuming the non-stop clicking. Athrun slipped his hand off Lacus' waist, and smiled down at her once more. She was quite tiny with the kind of delicate bone-structure that made her look fragile, but she owned the rare sort of aura that made the reporters and delegates love her, undoubtedly along with his best friend.

He bent his body in a bow while she curtsied along with the others who were dancing as the conductor ended the final note.

Before he could slip away silently to speak to some ORB officials, she suddenly grabbed his hand in an inexplicable motion, and he stared at her, puzzled. And then an announcement was made that made him freeze right in his tracks, unable to comprehend the rush of memories that gushed through his mind.

_A blonde soldier was pointing a gun absent-mindedly at the dirt, now was his chance to kill him! He'd kill the soldier while he was distracted and then use his SkyGrasper to escape from the island! Now was his chance! _

A man was opening the door for her. She was murmuring her thanks. Her lips parted in a soft, pinkened half-smile. She blinked once, blinded, only momentarily, by the light that flooded through the halls, and her eyelashes, long and like individual strands of a spider's web, goassamer and golden, rested lightly on her cheekbone before she opened her eyes again.

"_Crabs?" she said confusedly as she flipped up her shirt, making his eyes widen and his cheeks stained with a blush. What was she thinking? He could have killed her! _

The chandeliers, gigantic and omnipresent, cast their crystal glow downwards to the world they suspended above. The light was flung carelessly across her cheeks and caught on the string of diamonds that went around her neck, caressing her skin, inviting his eyes to be drawn upwards to her face.

He stared. Helpless. Paralysed with longing, a longing that was indescribable and probably irrational.

"_My name's Cagalli! What's yours?" she shouted across the rocks. He stared at her, wondering if it was safe to shout his own name to the blonde girl who had messed up his thinking in a short 24 hours. What a difference knowing her made. Here he was, preparing to shout his name to a potential enemy and not giving a hoot what happened next._

"_Athrun! My name's Athrun!"_

"Chairman Atha of ORB has arrived!"


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny, which can be a blessing, because if you did, then you'd have legions of ASUCAGA fans waiting to kill you if you didn't get ASUCAGA sorted out.

* * *

_Chapter4_

Athrun felt his mind go into a state it hadn't gone into for years-blankness.

His fists were clenched. He had the urge to pull out a knife.

At the same time, his pulse was quickening and little beads of sweat had gathered near his bangs, not that anyone would see. But that did not mask their existence, not when he felt them sliding slightly as he breathed- breathed.

His bangs had always served as a good concealer for the line of worry he chose to hide when he was working late with important deadlines to meet.

Blankness was like a state of vertigo to him, although it hadn't always been that way.

He was staring straight at Cagalli, Chairman of ORB and the Princess of ORB.

And Athrun was remembering things he had pushed himself to forget for the longest time, and then he knew instantly that he had always retained the truth, coupled with the vague knowledge that he would never succeed in forgetting it.

How did one forget a wound when he still carried it on him?

She was walking past him without even looking at him, although in the blurred sea of black and dark-coloured formal suits, he wasn't quite sure he was noticeable anyway. He felt his arm springing into motion to reach out for her hand but stopped himself in the nick of time and just stared at Cagalli Yula Atha.

Once, someone had told him that fate and irony were the best of friends. He truly believed that now.

The first time he had killed a man, he had stabbed him in the eye and watched the gleaming silver blade sinking right through the brain, and then watched the Earth Alliance soldier scream himself to death in pain and madness. Long after the soldier had died, the screams of pain were still echoing everywhere, and then he had realised the screams of agony were all his own.

All this at fourteen.

They had been about fifteen or close to sixteen when he had met Cagalli. He hadn't known it at the time when they had parted from the island their mobile suits had crashed on, but he had already fallen in love with one he had tried to kill a mere few hours ago.

Athrun watched the same one move past him and thought of the time when he had killed his first man. When he killed a man after that, his mind would be blank, but his hands would be fast and trained in using the gun or knife. His fingers would be quick to squeeze the crucial trigger, and his legs would spring into impossible leaps across wide expanses of space. He had successfully demonstrated it in the coliseum in Coppernicus when they had tried to save Mia Campbell from Dullindal's far-reaching influence and her greatest enemy-herself.

He wondered now, although the thoughts were like moths finding the fatal flames, their paths indirect as they swooned for the light. They were all moths in this hall- all dawn to the light, helpless, waiting to be consumed by the fire, leave, hollowed and laughing; smiling at people they'd never known in their lives, leaving without even knowing their names.

He closed his eyes.

She'd moved past him already.

Had Cagalli known much about Mia Campbell?

Athrun wondered whether Cagalli was aware that Mia Campbell had thrown herself at him at every opportunity to flirt and cling onto him. He had tried to ignore her, but it was difficult pretending to be blind. A bit like a person pretending to be asleep while his enemy watched him sleep and said, curiously, "I wonder if he is asleep."

She had clung on to him, insistent, somehow desperate and broken, she had tired him terribly, all the while saying it was only right since she was to be Lacus Clyne, Athrun Zala's former fiancée. Her voice, cheerful and interested in everything he said, was always a bit empty, they could both hear it.

And Athrun briefly questioned himself there and then, how Cagalli might have reacted to Mia Campbell if she knew of what had gone on in the territory of the Coordinators.

But Mia had died saving Lacus, something Lacus had wept about for days, and he had intensely regretted his decision to accept her as Lacus when he had been in ZAFT. She had been flirtatious and coy with him, something he knew stemmed from her need to play her role as Lacus, but it had become something that had gone far out of the region labelled as duty. He hadn't taken much notice of her, he had been far too preoccupied then, but her openness and care had touched him when Dullindal had tried to string him along like a puppet.

He found it difficult to look at Mia the way he looked at Lacus, she was her own stranger in the mirror, no doubt she had lost a bit of sanity with everything that had once defined Mia Campbell.

She had tried so hard to be Lacus, and like Rusty, had died trying to do something they weren't destined to finish in the first place.

Athrun had tried to save her too, but she didn't want to be saved even then. How could he, when she didn't want to?

And he hadn't even thought of Cagalli while he fought desperately to save himself from Dullindal and took Meyrin with him. Cagalli had already been someone else's by then,or so he had thought. At that time, there was only one chance to fight for his life and maybe save Meyrin and he couldn't afford to think of her any longer.

He had been forced to take the sixteen year-old Meyrin along with him although he hadn't wanted to at all, but that was the only way she'd be safe. If she had stayed behind on the Minerva, Rey would have killed her under Dullindal's orders in an instant. Athrun hadn't thought of Cagalli not because he didn't want to, but because he had forced himself to after finding out she had became Yuna Roma Seiran's bride instead of his.

Meyrin had stuck with him for a certain period of time, but she had just suddenly left one day with very little notice. He hadn't chased after her. He didn't see the need to, and besides, by the time he got hold of her resignation letter and the engagement ring which he had given Cagalli, the girl had disappeared without a trace or much of a goodbye.

When he had met up with Lacus, Kira, Shinn and Lunamaria, Meyrin had accompanied him. Although nothing had been voiced, Athrun knew Kira was a little suspicious of her even if he didn't say it or show it, but that was alright after a while because Cagalli didn't say anything either.

Athrun was sure that when he went into a killing mode, his mind was blank, but his body, lithe and with youth's favours surging in his veins along with the red, young blood, and his mind, trained from precise steps of simulations and mechanical murders in a practice zone, would be near the level of a super human's. Hadn't he done the same with Cagalli? She or he, since he had thought her a man, was only holding the weapon in curiosity, wondering where the gun had come from especially on such a remote island, but his mind had snapped, yes, snapped into a state of blankness.

He was practiced, an experienced killer, and he wanted to kill the enemy to save his own skin. The second and subsequent did not matter, he was over and done with killing the first, and when he was fourteen, he had known then that the second and subsequent man he killed would not matter.

Except when he had tried to kill a blonde boy and realised the soldier was a girl when the 'boy' had screamed in terror. She had been so irritated to know later that Athrun thought she was a he, and her passionate face, filled with anger and fury had bewitched him after that.

On a normal day, he would have been downright irritated that he was caught in something he couldn't understand, but when he had finally realised that all he wanted was her to be with him, he had been happy enough to just be confused and tangled in emotions impossible to analyse.

What could he have done anyway? All there was at that time as revenge, and even with his carefully manipulated genes, he had sweated his guts out to attain the Red Coat status. He was an elite soldier who could kill without breaking much of a sweat with little mercy for those who were in his way. Now, he had morphed into Chairman Zala of ETERNITY, an organisation the PLANT's high council had set up as a sub-government of peace, and his mind had scorned the irony of it all for a mere second.

He worked for peace but he never had any of his own.

Sleepless nights of never-ending work, reading documents even while his overworked eyes teared and issuing instructions with burning coffee keeping his mind alert had been something he adhered to for almost two years. It wasn't difficult- Athrun enjoyed having something to do, something he could dedicate his life to doing, knowing that he was doing something worthwhile, fighting his own war.

All this, with a tiny hope buried deep somewhere that he would see her again. That hope was a dangerous little spark, a little scratch of wild chance and the lone red flower, tiny yes, but a singular red, amongst the normal, placid fields of green. That dot of hope. He could live, he would live, even while his back and abdomen had scars, feral and sepia with the dulled pain his body had endured, but he wanted more. Athrun wanted peace within him.

He watched quietly.

Cagalli was extending her hand to a minister, and he kissed it reverently. She was smiling and saying something that was lost in the roar of the crowd's murmurs and the ocean of sounds.

And the answer presented itself. She was his peace, even with her unpredictability and feisty temper, her naïve child-like ways and that strange, inherent wisdom that could present itself. Her face was hauntingly beautiful- how many times had it looked at him in his dreams and how many times had she smiled?

The truth was becoming suffocating now, pressing down, a pilgrim's burden, and he wanted cold water to splash on his face, tell himself he was merely hallucinating in this hall, teeming with decadence and steaming with humanity.

He stared at her, not seeing anymore.

He had been lying for so long.

But it had been difficult to admit it to himself when he had stepped down from the shuttle when they had arrived, but he had known that the truth would be unraveled and it would find him sooner or later. And it would prick him everywhere, from the edges of his fingertips to the borders of every memory he had re-obtained in that terrible, blinding moment as he looked at her. He needed her still.

He still saw Cagalli Yula Atha, or as the world knew her, the Chairman Atha of Orb. She had became one of the most-photographed people along with Lacus, international icons in their own rights, and Athrun knew that it was a fact that Cagalli appeared on television in hundreds of press conferences.

But he hadn't dared to take too much notice. Now, the sting of the truth, revealed and bare, not harmless but heavy and sensuous in the whispered suggestions of what he would do from then on, would wait to punish him.

He knew too, that the peace was making so much progress due to her efforts that it was almost unbelievable that the Coordinators and Naturals had been at each others' throats for the last century. Cagalli would appear to speak to her people regularly, according to Kira, and as a brother his voice would reveal that hint of pride that Lacus similarly shared for Cagalli's determination and strong will.

But Athrun had not seen it, of course. He had very little time to watch the news, and everything came in newspapers. As soon as the newspapers came to his office and his eyes viewed golden hair and amber eyes splayed out on the papers, his mind would automatically transfer him into his killing mode-blankness, and the hands, so used to mechanically squeezing the trigger, would automatically flip to the next page without him reading anything or seeing anything about her.

His heart would pound like a rock with life breathed into it, in the left of his chest. And he imagined, for a minute now, that it was doing so at this moment.

The truth was that his heart ached every single time he flipped a page and turned his head away from any picture or image of her. The mere mention of her name could effectively put him in a bad mood for several hours, even his careless, unconcerned secretary smelt a fish.

Now she was in front of him, flanked by several bodyguards she had once been so uncomfortable about. He was quite sure she would have felt more comfortable having a gun hidden somewhere about in her clothes and guarding someone else than being the one guarded, and he had to stifle a dry laugh.

The bodyguards were like black wolves around her. He fought back a sneer- wasn't she always insisting that she was competent to protect herself?

Most of the delegates either were either trained fighters or had their own bodyguards; hence Cagalli having six of them wasn't quite overboard. Even the most minor delegates had at least two, so the Supreme Commander of ORB couldn't have just herself, could she?

One of her bodyguards, obviously a trained killer like most of them were, guided Cagalli into the main hall where she would make a speech in honour of the night of cooperation between EA, ORB and PLANT. Earth Alliance had agreed to send their ambassadors to be under ORB's control for five years in a bid to widen the network and ensure peace on an international stage. PLANT, of course, was another issue.

It was internationally known that ORB and EA had always been on better terms than PLANT and ORB or EA and PLANT, and hence a selected group of Naturals from ORB were to be sent to PLANT to try integration with Coordinators. It was an instrumental project to determine if the time was right to announce the world was reformed for good. Of course it was hell for all the embassies, Athrun thought. There were thousands of arrangements to make in the integration, and some details would surely crop up even in the light dinner conversation that night.

Unbeknownst to most of the public, ETERNITY wasn't all about diplomacy. Under its calm exterior of peaceful talks and negotiations to settle differences in areas around the world with the Naturals and Coordinators, ETERNITY actually possessed a secret military force that was part of ZAFT.

If necessary, ETERNITY would activate the peacekeeping troops to the different areas in the world to prevent violence and aggression from taking place against either group. Economic sanctions weren't the only fight for peace, since some areas like Berlin and the Eastern European region had more than enough of an independent economy to rely on if they were to declare themselves anti-coordinator. This was all top-secret of course, and very few other than himself, the ETERNITY council he headed, and the Supreme Council of PLANT knew this.

As far as he could see, Cagalli had risen to the occasion and taken to the important meeting swathed in an expensive-looking black satin gown heavily studded with jet and rhinestones. She had probably pierced her ears some time in the two years that he hadn't seen her and had looped sparkling silver drops into the ear holes, drawing attention to her face upwards.

He gave the attention almost unwittingly, although by the time he realised that he was oggling at her, most of the men already were. His eyes were glued onto her, almost forcefully and somehow, the blankness and random mix of memories cleared from his mind akin to the way a wind would blow a thick fog away.

The ambassadors and various literati of ORB, PLANT and EA were applauding as she entered with a regal air that surprised only him. He hadn't seen it in her before, but the others, well-practised with her appearances on television and newspapers, had. Athrun could not believe how much she had transformed in a space of a little more than a year, and felt a pang of misery hit him as Kira took her gloved hand and led her, amidst loud applause to the platform where she would make her speech.

Her hair was still a little shorter than what most girls would have preferred, although it was considerably longer than when she had been sixteen and mistaken for a boy very often. Looking at the way she was tonight, Athrun was sure nobody would ever mistake her for a boy again. The women in the room were staring in awe as Lacus joined her on stage to stand by her side for a good public image. Clearly, nobody there could outshine either of them.

Ever since Lacus had appeared by Cagalli's side while Cagalli gave a speech that was interrupted by Mia Campbell, the public had loved to see the two together. They had been nicknamed the 'Princesses of Peace' ever since then.

Kira had snickered once and told Athrun that the nickname should have been 'Prince and Princess of Peace'. Athrun didn't bother giving him a warning, knowing Kira was unmanageable when he went wild, but if Cagalli had heard about the go her twin had taken at her, she would have killed him instantly.

Her blonde hair was almost reaching her shoulders and pinned beautifully with matching hair gems on either side of her head that made him want to rub his eyes and check if he was dreaming. By that time, he was already openly oggling her and then he scanned the room and gave up trying to count how many others were doing similar things. There were just to many to count, but the realisation of that actually fuelled his rather irrational irritation.

She had renounced the title of Princess in a public statement that had been blasted and triumphed on news and papers for weeks. Cagalli Yula Atha was a leader of real people, not just mere royalty by virtue of birth given to a princess that would never see suffering or injustice thrown at people below her. In the aftermath of the second war, her strength had touched the ORB citizens and made her appeal to them more than any other leader had, even her father.

And once the election results in ORB had been announced, it had made it terribly clear that she was very much preferred to be chosen as ORB's leader than the existing Seirans. Yuna Roma Seiran hadn't lived long enough to see his would-be bride step up to overcome every obstacle head-on the way a man would and ought to.

So she had become the Chairman of ORB soon after, although many still thought of as a princess and it was well known that Cagalli Yula Atha had a man's courage and grit and very little of what the average person might deem as 'pincessy'. Tonight though, her attire proved otherwise. She looked fit to ride in a carriage drawn by horses like a fragile, glass-blown princess with a tiara carefully placed atop her head, as ridiculous as it sounded.

Athrun glanced at her hair and recalled the time when she had screeched bloody murder for the world to hear as the trusty Mana tried to weave ribbons into her golden hair, and he desperately fought down the urge to chortle with glee. No wonder she was late and they hadn't thought she was going to turn up after all. Mana must have had gotten down on her knees and begged for an hour for her hair to become as impeccably coiffed as it was now.

There was once when he had caught her trying to untangle some strange kinks in her hair when she had woken in the morning and he had laughed at her just to pick a fight for his own entertainment. Cagalli had actually snarled and had thrown a hairbrush at him in a rage and they had ended up wrestling on the carpet. He would have won if Yuna Roma Seiran hadn't caught them, not that Athrun actually bothered explaining anything, but then Athrun had left for ZAFT soon after.

He searched her face, re-memorising the lines and features that he had feared to see again, unwillingly allowing himself to see her properly for the first time in more than a year. The concealer was not quite hiding her dark eye bags although it was good enough for the press's cameras that were clicking non-stop. Her lips were stained an attractive cherry red that Mana must have wept for her to put on for her own sake, lest she look washed out in photos in the stark light the rooms were lit in. Startled, he realised that her face looked almost the same as it did when she had unwillingly given her hand to Yuna Roma Seiran.

Athrun remembered the manner in which he had seen those pictures of her looking pure and vulnerable in a wedding gown. The pictures of her smiling and waving in a car splashed all over the news on the Minerva's online news network had made him made with grief for some time, admittedly only after Lunamaria had initially shocked him when she had told him of the news.

He remembered how dazed he had been at Cagalli's betrayal, and how the photos of her with another had made his blood boil. Nobody had seen him in the pathetic state of rage and grief in his room. Lunamaria had been the closest to seeing him lose his sanity with rage, but what she had seen had only been Athrun dropping his briefcase and dashing out of the elevator the very instant when the elevator doors had sprung open. That was all.

He had thrown a chair with all his might and smashed it into the wall in his own room, but only after leaving the lift and a very bewildered Lunamaria behind in it, and it had taken some time for him to calm down and be as subdued as he ought to have been as an elite soldier.

Cagalli, clad in midnight black, was saying something about cooperation and something or the other and he couldn't quite comprehend what that was especially when she was dressed like that. But then, he swiftly glanced around and saw that most of the men in the room couldn't either, and he felt a little annoyed.

When Yuna Roma Seiran had rushed to her like an excited puppy and embraced her, Athrun hadn't said anything and looked in another direction even though his fists were already clenched. He could see as clearly as day, how terribly slanted and mocking Yuna Roma Seiran's eyes were and even when he saw the pained, beseeching gaze in Cagalli's eyes as she tried to entangle herself, he didn't stop her from being led away. Bodyguards didn't say anything, so Alex Dino didn't. He had cursed himself countless of times after that.

_A period later, he had received a message from Mirallia Haww and sneaked off in Saviour to meet Kira and Cagalli, but he had yelled at both of them, and harsh words had been directed to Cagalli, criticizing her actions thoroughly and breaking every shred of confidence that was left in her. _

_Kira had been mostly silent, speaking up only after his tirade, but he knew Kira had been a little hurt too, but Athrun was even more aware that Cagalli had been shattered. He knew that of course. He wanted to hurt her for hurting him, although he hadn't admitted it to himself until the next time he had seen her face to face on the _ _Archangel__, and that had been after a few months at a stretch. _

_At that time, his head had throbbed so badly it brought him out of his semi-conscious state and refocused his eyes on her amber ones and the surroundings of the _ _Archangel__. Meyrin had been concerned that he was too badly injured to sit up, but she had eventually left both Cagalli and him alone. He had apologised to her, and so had she, but the wounds were still there. They'd be there for eternity._

He had prided himself on always being inscrutable with nary an expression that an enemy would sue to his advantage, and he couldn't fathom why meeting Cagalli now at this time should have been anything that deviated from his stoic nature. Kira had once commented that he took things too seriously and was incapable of lightening up even when he, Kira, Meyrin and Lacus had gone shopping in Copernicus. He knew it himself, he really didn't need anyone pointing out the obvious.

Not that he had cared of course, he didn't see a need to change because Cagalli had never complained about anything, and besides, she wasn't there to complain anymore, simply because she wasn't there at all.

A strange feeling pierced his chest, and he vaguely recalled that it was about the same kind of emotion that he had felt when he watched Junius Seven forced from its orbit, blasted into smithereens along with his mother. Thirteen had been a rather young age to see his mother die in front of his own eyes and it was on national television, adding more than a mere insult to his injury.

Athrun looked at Cagalli once more and thought that even if she looked the same as she did on her wedding day when she had been taken by Kira and the Freedom, she wouldn't be exactly the same. She wasn't struggling with any inner conflicts to put ORB as her first priority as far as he could tell, but then she wasn't confident in her self-assured, natural way any longer. Instead, she was confident and articulate in the polished manner politicians often were taught how to be. So she had mastered the science of it too.

Nobody knew it better than him. The men and women in the room saw a girl the world had come to recognise and respect, but the Cagalli in front of him and the hundreds in the room wasn't the same Cagalli as the free-spirited sixteen-year old he had met before. The sixteen year old had captured his heart. Her piercing eyes had made him see her as the warrior who fought every day but was vulnerable to so many things. Perhaps that had reeled him in to her at the end. That had been the truth then. That was the truth even now.

Her dress rustled lovingly and secretively against her body, and she rearranged a fold to step over the train. The raven shades gave her a enigmatic pallor, and he wondered how the moon would look above her.

But she wouldn't be wearing white any longer either, Cagalli Yula Atha would be clad in the deepest black the material could ever be dyed from then on.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny, which can be a blessing, because if you did, then you'd have legions of ASUCAGA fans waiting to kill you if you didn't get ASUCAGA sorted out.

* * *

Chapter 5

Athrun tried his utmost to listen to her words as he watched Cagalli confidently addressing the literati, ambassadors and delegates in a commanding voice that added an aura of authority to her presence. He knew he was failing so bad, it would look pathetic if it had been placed onto a scorecard. But then, he knew that the men in the room weren't quite paying attention to what she was saying either, and then he wanted to take some gasoline and set fire to the room just to see what would happen next.

Through the mumble-jumble of everything, he miraculously gathered that Cagalli had spoken of her wishes for the three powers to unite in the aim to bring back peace in all areas of life and a desire for cooperation, finally wishing all those present a wonderful evening.

Kira was applauding so heartily and obviously that it brought a slight flush into her face, secretly pleased that her brother was so delighted with her. Lacus was no exception, and as she joined Cagalli on stage for a photo to be taken, the photographers went crazy with their trusty cameras and the rest applauded politely once more. Not for nothing had they been crowned the Princesses of Peace by the media.

As she stepped down, dozens of men swarmed around her, intermingling with the photographers and journalists, but Kira easily blocked them by taking her hand first and leading her away, Lacus taking his other hand. To Athrun, his best friend looked like a downright Casanova, but the cameras loved it. Anyway, everyone, save maybe those who had been living under a rock for the past two years or so knew that Kira Yamato and Cagalli Yula Atha were twins.

The world had been stunned to find out they were twins, but the photo of Via Hibiki and them as babies had been concrete enough as evidence, although conspiracy theories were still flying everywhere. Athrun knew for a fact that Kira didn't bother answering mails that accused him of fathering Cagalli Yula Atha. It was too ludicrous to even bother with.

Athrun had been one of the first to see the photos during the end of the first war when Cagalli had produced it, and the more he looked at Cagalli, the more he had seen her mother in her and Kira. They had the same eyes and fine features, although Kira had inherited the brown hair while Cagalli had inherited the blond hair her biological father had.

But once, when he had managed to get her to loosen up with some drinks, her tongue had been untied and she had told him once that she had no other father except the man who had shoved her and Kira into safety and then died for the ideals of ORB.

Then he had had to hide the drinks away because she started shouting absolute gobbledy-gook and ranting nonsense, and he had tried to send her straight to bed. But she had subsequently regurgitated her dinner on him, and by the time he had gotten cleaned up and popped into her room to see if she was alright, she had been curled up and dozing on her bedcovers without even bothering with the blankets. Athrun knew that bodyguards just didn't tuck their employers into their beds like children, but he had covered her with blankets and sat there for a long time, watching her cry out silently in her sleep and he had stroked her head and gently wiped away her hot tears, one by one, all while she slept fitfully.

Now watching his best friend applauding so enthusiastically and in such a carefree manner that was rare to see especially after the war, Athrun had to allow himself a smile and applauded along with the rest.

He tried to catch her eye again, but she was smiling and greeting the rest of the world but him. He felt like jumping up at down and screeching, "Here! Here!", but he obviously didn't do it. Fully-fledged twenty-year-old coordinators weren't supposed to be behaving like they were three.

Dinner was announced in a matter of a few seconds and the officials were placed at their seats, discreetly arranged so that their various titles and positions were in accordance with where they sat.

Athrun quietly noted that nobody dared complain. How could anyone be ambassadors if they didn't know when to keep their mouths shut in any case? Heading the long dining table was Lacus, where Kira sat adjacent to her. Athrun was placed next to Kira on one side of the table, directly opposite Cagalli who was sitting next to PLANT's ZAFT's ambassador-cum-spokesperson.

Her eyes were like magnets that were turned on same poles to each other- they repelled his, and it was insistently effective. She refused to look at him no matter how hard he tried to catch her eye, and it was rather embarrassing since the discretion was fading to a full-out silent assault. In the end, he gave up and concentrated on his steak, scorning himself silently for doing what she had done to avoid him. So she concentrated on her steak.

His meal tasted like sawdust, and nothing was registering anything familiar to his taste buds. Compliments were doled out dutifully to the Chef, and Kira and Cagalli were praising the sauce that the chef had skillfully made, making the chef standing nearby blush as red as the lobster served as a second course.

Apparently, the twins shared the same taste buds, and Athrun personally knew Kira too was impartial towards chilli, and yoghurt sauce on kebabs was a second option only when they ran out of chilli sauce. He also knew for a fact that Kira was smart enough not to say anything of the sort to either Andrew Bartfeld or Cagalli, lest they start a war proving which sauce was better.

Then Athrun watched Cagalli flash the chef a slight smile, causing the chef to blush with pleasure, and couldn't help clenching his fork. How could she even care about a dinner sauce when he was sitting right before her?

At that point, Lacus drew herself up, making the most of her rather diminutive height. Kira was slight himself, and Lacus' profile complimented his own. The pink-haired coordinator beamed at the cameras and proposed a toast to everyone for their efforts at changing the world. There were a hundred or so clink of glasses as they all stood up, and as Athrun pushed back his chair to stand, so did Cagalli. In the crowded space filled with dishes and glasses and fancy cutlery, what happened next was inevitable.

Their hands brushed against each other's and their eyes met each other's for the briefest of moments before she immediately refocused on her darned steak. He was so startled at the amber eyes looking straight at him that he failed to notice Kira's raised eyebrows that were in danger of disappearing beyond his hairline, and he was far too ruffled to notice Lacus' slight giggle that made the PLANT chairman a tad puzzled at what she was laughing at. The toast was over and done with, and they were seated once more with sounds of pleasant conversation springing up everywhere amongst various segments of the table. Quietly wrenching his hand from his fork, Athrun breathed heavily and resumed shovelling food down his throat.

Kira glanced from his once-feisty sister to his best friend and snorted into his napkin. He understood everything that was going on, of course. He could summarise it as concisely as the Mathematical equations he used in the extensive laboratory that he had worked in for the past two years.

Simply put, it was Cagalli with ORB obligations, Athrun with ZAFT duties, both drifting away, ring passed to Meyrin, ring now in pocket, ring not on hand, Cagalli with more ORB obligations, Athrun with ETERNITY duties, oh, it was so simple.

One day, he would summarise all those complicated cooking recipes into simple equations for cooking-dummies like him, but first, he needed to learn how to cook an egg properly. He'd get Lacus to teach him exactly that one day.

He had discussed everything with Lacus, who had agreed it was a downright shame that Cagalli, now a professional at her duties, was woefully not adapt at handling both obligations and her own personal life. It wasn't that ORB couldn't handle her taking her eyes off it for a reasonable daily basis, it was more of Cagalli who refused to see that she could have a life even though a country was on her shoulders.

Kira had watched his sister swallow all sorts of medicine to keep her health stable as she fought through mountains of documents and made important decisions every morning after a Cabinet meeting that left her drained and exhausted from arguing and trying to negotiate and compromise with the other ministers.

His best friend wasn't any better. Life on the Minerva after retuning to ZAFT in the second war had proven that. Heck, he couldn't even shake off the other girls' attention! To cut him some slack, Athrun hadn't even noticed the Hawke girls were about to fight tooth and nail over him, but surely Lacus' look-alike had been an obvious indication?

He had heard from Shinn and Lunamaria just some time ago, how Athrun had woken up to see Mia Campbell next to him, much to Athrun's immense embarrassment. There he was, straddled between his obligations and his personal life and definitely clueless on how to win Cagalli back. Sad, though Kira morosely, how sad.

Swallowing a bite down, Kira observed Lacus. She was busy in earnest conversation with the PLANT ambassador adjacent on her other end, and everyone around them was busy in heartfelt conversation.

Athrun's right neighbour, a suave businessman who held the most important businesses in the Earth Alliance, was trying to chat him up, and Athrun had all but entertained him for about three minutes before resuming to the steak he had been cutting up. Kira was certain that if the businessman tried pushing his luck any longer, Athrun would demonstrate some knife-skills he had learnt in ZAFT, all with his steak-knife.

"What was so interesting about the steak anyway?" Kira wondered, noting how intently his sister and his best friend were shredding theirs. Wondering if he ought to see things from their point of view, Kira absently flipped up his knife and set to work with his own steak.

The meat was tasteless, thought Athrun as the awkwardness made him cringe inwardly. His exterior though, was another case altogether in the eyes of the others. Not for nothing had he been a Red Coat who could hide his emotions well enough, if not splendidly, when the time called for it.

He peeped through his lashes up at the girl sitting opposite him, a trick he had learnt to do when he was pretending to look at his chess pieces while intently watching Yzak's face. Yzak Joule's face was the kind that often betrayed the next step or course of action the hot-headed coordinator was about to execute. By simply reading Yzak Joule's expressions in secret so he would not realise Athrun was reading him, Yzak had lost three quarters of the time they had been pitted against each other.

Athrun knew for a fact that the only people Yzak would listen to was Dearka Elseman or Shiho Haehenfuss, and neither could really control the eccentric temper he possessed.

Nicole had once been able to calm him down by pure logic and reasoning but Nicole wasn't here anymore, Athrun thought sadly.

Dearka and Shiho weren't as adapt with their words as the talented pianist, and they had to rely on their own individual ways to handle Yzak in a bad mood. Dearka would joke casually and then laugh off Yzak's threats to calm him down and Shiho, well, she'd punch him to get him to calm down, and oh boy, she threw a mean punch when she felt like it. Athrun could see her getting married to his friend any day now and shuddered to think of what their kids would be like in the future. He could imagine the ZAFT instructors handling their kids in their training to be Redcoats like their parents and prayed for the instructors' sake.

Now, Athrun was sitting across the girl he had known could punch as well as any man could, and couldn't help feeling puzzled as he silently assessed her. She was looking as polished as Lacus, a feat Mana must have had accomplished after twenty or more rounds of begging, but something was different about Cagalli.

Gone was the crackling fire in her eyes and in its place was a dull quietness that made his heart ache. Her cheeks were paler than before, perhaps due to the fact that was probably cooped indoors most of the time. The most disconcerting change was her eyes, those eyes that could have flashed fire in her fury and the same eyes that were reduced to ice-cold shards of amber now.

But how beautiful she was!

He only had to stand to have reached out and stroked her cheek with the soft of his hand's back, feel her eyes staring at him, golden and liquid.

And Athrun was struck by how emotionless they looked to him, and had to fight the urge to stare indiscreetly at her.

She had started talking to a ZAFT ambassador seated next to her, and he was even more surprised how subdued her voice was. It was a totally different voice from what he had ever heard, and her warm alto tone was replaced with a meeker, slightly more impersonal and a generic sounding key that transformed her into another person altogether. The warm huskiness in her voice was muted as she made her polite inquiries, and he wondered if she was hiding pain in her.

He knew he was.

He couldn't believe the shell he was witnessing. And Athrun was tempted to reach out and touch her face in an attempt to see if it was the same Cagalli he had known a little more than a year ago. But he held himself back just in the nick of time; it would not do to make a slip at this juncture with so many eyes around.

The ZAFT ambassador, a recently-promoted Red Coat was now inviting him into the conversation after being stumped by Cagalli's question. The poor boy who was signalling Athrun into the conversation with pleading eyes, and he gladly took the cue.

Clearing his throat slightly, he addressed the girl he had not known he was pining away for for two years until a few days ago.

"I'm sorry, but could you repeat your question, Chairman Atha?"

Her eyes were finally channelled straight at him, for she could not avoid him a longer in front of the ZAFT ambassador, and her lips were slightly parted in a gesture of not knowing what to do, but her training kicked in and she was smoothly throwing forth the question that had stumped the eager young ZAFT ambassador through and through.

" How is it that ZAFT's decision to introduce another elite faction of soldiers apart from the Red Coats can benefit the peace between PLANT's newly integrated naturals that originate from ORB and the existing Coordinators?" she asked, steadily levelling her amber gaze at him.

Athrun glanced at the young ambassador who was bobbing his head enthusiastically as if he had asked the question himself, genuinely eager to hear his answer, and had to smile at the impressionable young man's enthusiasm. At the back of his mind, he wondered if the young ambassador had ever killed before even as an elite soldier who was trained to kill if necessary,

Drawing in a deep breath, he replied, "ZAFT's decision to introduce the new faction complies alongside ETERNITY's decision to train potential soldiers with outstanding qualities above the average soldier's abilities.

By introducing the new faction in ZAFT that answer both to the diplomatic decisions ETERNITY carry out while keeping in mind ZAFT's military training, PLANT will see a new generation of suitably trained peace protectors that are better equipped than the existing Red Coats.

This is necessary so that we have the superior manpower and suitably trained soldier who can both compromise peacefully and carry out military action if necessary to prevent any glitches in the introduction of ORB's naturals as PLANT'S newcomers. In short, the new faction of elite ZAFT soldiers will be the future leaders of the protectors of peace in PLANT."

The young ZAFT ambassador was beaming away gratefully, mouthing his thanks to Athrun, and he nodded in response. Cagalli on the other hand, was nodding politely as she received the information, and subsequently returned back to what remained of her steak. Athrun felt somewhat crushed as she dabbed her lips with the napkin to avoid the smudging of her lips and likewise, returned to his shredded meat. He knew very well that she wasn't going to suddenly be Miss Universe-friendly and start talking to him.

Then he glared up at Kira who had similarly shredded his meat and was proudly showing it off to him, watching sourly as Kira grinned up at him in a rather child-like manner that Athrun had not seen after the first war.

Right at that point. Cagalli caused a small diversion at the table by dripping blood onto the pristine-white table cloth. Lacus was the first to notice, gasping, "Cagalli! You're bleeding!"

Stunned, Cagalli sat frozen in her seat while her bodyguards seemed to materialise out of nowhere and rushed to the table to attend to her.

Her nostrils were dripping blood everywhere, and the intense red was staining the table cloth and dripping down her lips and chin. She was having a nosebleed and it was without warning, making all the diners go into frenzy while the cameras resumed their clicking that was becoming rather tiresome, thought Athrun.

He wondered that it would look like on the newspapers for someone in beautiful clothes at a sophisticated dinner to be dripping blood everywhere and felt a little sorry for Cagalli.

The delegates and important people were all flustered trying to make her sit still and fussing over her and avoiding touching or cleaning up the blood while she tried to mop it up as cleanly as possible. Her body had probably overheated in the room, Athrun realised, and that was causing her nosebleed.

She then flustered everyone even further by pushing her chair back and standing tall with her head proud, although the sudden shock had been a blow to her pride in her efforts to be part of a perfect evening.

Cagalli held up a hand, the other still covering the lower part of her face exposing her mouth, and said mildly, "I will go for a walk to get some fresh air, and perhaps that will clear my head a little. I apologise for the ruckus I have unintentionally caused, but please go ahead without me and enjoy your dinner."

She ended her words with a little smile that set the flustered air still and placid once more. The cameras that had suddenly reactivated their frantic clicking were now still, and Lacus clapped her hands together and called for dinner to resume.

Barely any eyes were on Cagalli as she gathered herself together and with her bodyguards, discreetly made her way to the nearest exit, for Lacus was doing far too good a job of diverting the attention back to dinner.

The butler, one of the hundreds for that night, asked politely, "Dessert?"

"Please." He answered dully.

He was still looking at Cagalli's retreating back.

There was a general bustle as the crowd near her table dispersed back to their original seats and resumed the last course-desert. Athrun cringed as the crème brule's high sugar levels finally punched through his taste buds and made him want to check if he had diabetes.

Kira, who actually had a sweet tooth, was blissfully savouring the desert and Athrun could tell he was trying to abstain from calling for seconds. He sighed and tried to finish it all for fear of wasting, as his mother had taught him, but gave up after a few mouthfuls of sweet desert. Athrun looked around at the rest of those at the table to check if the coast was clear and discreetly slid the desert to Kira who wolfed it down within seconds and muttered his thanks to which he responded with an almost invisible nod.

It wouldn't be good for the reporters to write that the head of Science and Engineering at ORB was a pig when it came to desert, would it? They'd be saying that he was having a yo-yo relationship with his weight after that, trust the tabloids to do that kind of thing.

As soon as desert had ended and the dance floor was open, Athrun stood up along with the others and headed to a side exit where an extensive stretch of rose gardens were beckoning. He noted how glorious the gardens were even in the night, and how the Earth Alliance's diplomats really knew how to turn up the glamour factor.

Ignoring the call to find a partner for the upcoming dance segment, he peered through the slightly foggy glass. The bustle and noise was enough distraction for him to pull open a heavy, gilded-door handle and lead him out of the stifling room, but a hand tugged at his elbow, and he whirled around to face Kira.

"What is it?" Athrun asked, a tad embarrassed that his friend had noticed his attempt to follow Cagalli without trying very hard to. With some luck, the others wouldn't.

"Bring this to her, it'll help her stem the bleeding," murmured Kira, as he placed a little pill and a wad of soft cotton into Athrun's outstretched palm.

Grinning at his friend, Athrun slipped like a shadow, silent and cat-like, out of the brightly-lit area and into the looming darkness of the extensive gardens where he could spot Cagalli pacing up at down in the distance.

She was an entity amongst the gloomy loneliness of the shrubs, and even from the distance, Athrun understood, from her posture and the slight tilt of her head, that she was waiting for something they did not know how to identify, waiting for something to present itself.

Grasping the pill in his hands, he strode purposefully to where she was pacing with her bodyguards standing alert nearby, hoping that a wind would blow, tousling her hair, freezing the composure he would have to muster upon setting eyes on her face, and that the same wind would make her tongue loosen by the time he arrived.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny, which can be a blessing, because if you did, then you'd have legions of ASUCAGA fans waiting to kill you if you didn't get ASUCAGA sorted out.

* * *

Chapter 6

As Athrun approached the area where Cagalli was pacing at, he heard voices, urgent and hiding a note of anger and desperation with a hint of hatred.

For a second, he wondered if it was only the sobs of the winds in the autumn night, childish and hateful. The chilly air was wrapping around his face like a scarf, cold and ungracious. And he licked his lips, imagining that he had only just woken up from a deep sleep, his voice rusted and rough with disuse.

The roses were frosted and ice peach with the temperatures, their petals were crystallized from within. Their heads would fall and be stepped on, they'd protest with a vehement crunch, but they would have to wait for their renewal in spring.

Sensing a need to remain unseen for the meantime, he darted swiftly into a nearby rosebush and sincerely hoped nobody would spot him. His ears pricked up as he listened to the arguing voices, one unmistakably Cagalli's.

"It's just a nosebleed! Nothing's going to be wrong even if I have to vomit right there! Whose problem would it be anyway if I stained the cloth a little? At the end of the dinner, that cloth would have been cleaned anyway! I promise you, the worst I've done never reached its height with a bloodstain or two on the cl-"

A male voice intercepted gravely, "Not that. The reporters will doubt if your health is perfect and may write stories that are dire to your reputation, Chairman Atha. Besides, I highly doubt nosebleed pictures look flattering on newspapers. You have only the fact that your dress is black tonight that you can thank and be grateful for."

Cagalli, suddenly controlled and as meek as a mouse, was muttering, "Alright, I understand, I'll speak to the reporters later and try to gain a foot hold of the situation. I can probably get them not to publish the pictures if I speak to them, since I can't let them have anything to pick on, can I?"

Athrun strained his ears intently and heard a thudding sound like someone had patted Cagalli on the back, and wondered who would have so much influence as to have curbed the infamous temper and arguing matches Cagalli was prone to.

The crunch of the ground, icy and irritated, became faint.

A wave of curiosity and slight doubt poured through him, and he waited for the footsteps to go past the bush he was hidden in, peering at the man who had just spoken to Cagalli.

He was only slightly shorter than Athrun with neat, closely cropped black hair and horn-rimmed glasses, and quite handsome in a strange, unconventional manner. Perhaps it was his frown, or perhaps the slight flare of stiff disappointment in his eyes, or perhaps both combined that creased his brow slightly. He was decked in a dapper grey suit and black silk tie, and Athrun suddenly recognized him as Cagalli's subordinate who had opened the door for her as she had slipped unnoticed into the gardens.

Shaking his head slightly, Athrun made his decision. And he slipped out of the bushes and silently approached Cagalli who had resumed her rather controlled and subdued pacing. The earth did not crunch, the grass was still growing there, and he was a shadow again.

"Cagalli," he called softly. She drew around sharply, and his breath caught as he watched her head snap to him and her eyes morph from the dull amber to an alarmed look, and then eventually, to the same, dull, guarded one he detested seeing. Her posture was stiff and perfect.

She had frozen like a deer caught in headlights for a split-second before turning away and asking quietly, "What is it, Chairman Zala?"

He could not see her expression while her back was turned towards him, and closed the distance between them in a mere four strides.

He caught up to her and grasped her elbow firmly, and suddenly, all her bodyguards had swarmed around them like angry hornets ready for the kill. Athrun tensed up, ready to fight if need be as his basic instincts were honed to do, but his grip on her elbow still remained firm. She did not struggle. And that was sufficient.

Simultaneously, Cagalli drew a deep breath in, calmly issuing instructions almost as if she had been born to do it her whole life. Well, if he thought about it carefully, she was.

"Leave us until I call for you to come." she said coldly and bitingly, averting her eyes from his in a parody of the dinner he had just gotten away from. Her instructions were like the law, he supposed, and the bodyguards retreated to an area that was surely out of sight and earshot.

"What is it, Chairman?" she asked, impersonal and mild, yet again, surprising him with her apparent coolness. Her breath was white in the air, but she ignored it as if to deny the slight sting of the cold. Already, her cheeks were blooming, making her even more alluring.

He snapped his eyes from the bodyguards' retreating backs to her levelled gaze, and felt a sense of uncertainty course through his entire being. Her eyes were so emotionless, like chasms that made him feel he knew nothing about her, and he was forced to let go of her elbow although she made no outward resistance where his grip was concerned.

"I brought you something Kira thought would stem the bleeding, "he managed somehow, as he slipped the pill into her gloved hand. He had an overwhelming need to hold her warm, ungloved hand in his, but the glove was a barrier. But unexpectedly, she slipped off a glove and stretched out a palm to take the pill and cotton wad with a nod that expressed her thanks.

Athrun stared, surprised that she had taken off her glove so suddenly, and she caught his eye and whispered, "They were ruined with my blood anyway."

Miserably, she held out the gloves towards him in the dim light of the gardens, and he could see clearly that the fine white satin would never be as white as it had originally been.

Unable to hold back all his questions any longer, Athrun held his gaze towards her, aware that the intensity was the direct opposite from the empty gaze she was directing at him, although he was still thankful she was at least looking at him.

"Why are you so changed, Cagalli?" he demanded harshly, half-expecting to hear her hiss that it was none of his sodding business.

Instead, she didn't, but flinched so slightly he would have hardly noticed it if they weren't in such close proximity.

"I had to, because it was for the best," she replied, again mildly, as she straightened the gauzy shawl around her. He blinked, hardly believing that the girl who could spit fire if provoked and who had lived life with such zest and self-assured character would ever give a reply the stranger in front of him as now giving.

"Why are you speaking like that, Cagalli?" he cried, honestly losing control for the first time that evening. Frustration roared in his body, and his shoulders were tense with an unexpected disappointment.

She turned away, her back towards him, hiding her expression, and replied in the same emotionless tone, although a slight haughtiness had entered, "How else should I reply? You haven't changed the way I have had to because you were perfect for the role of ETERNITY's chairman from the start, whereas I had to change to fit in and carry out the duties of ORB."

She made as if to walk away and that was when he sprang into action.

Athrun gripped her elbow for the second time that evening and spun her around to face him, hoping secretly that she would have had some expression of distaste or anger or defiance in her eyes, but was disappointed to see they were as empty as ever.

The life and feistiness in her seemed to have been drained out by forces and agents unknown to him, and it was becoming clearer and clearer every moment that she was carefully layered and concealed behind walls he had not known were so thick when he had tried to make a breakthrough.

Not knowing what to do, he pulled her towards him and crushed her in a hug, covering her bare shoulders as her shawl slipped to the ground. She would have either pushed back and fought against him furiously or hugged him back with all her might in the past, but she was like a rag doll now, emotionless and practised as she calmly uttered, like a silent scream of rage, silent only because of her immense control, "Let go, Chairman. If you will, let go. I should not be forced into requesting for help, you are as aware as I that that wouldn't be beneficial for either of us, especially in an event like this and the media like bloodhounds everywhere. You know the consequences."

He chose to ignore what she had probably been taught to say and didn't comply with her instructions, but instead hugged her tighter to him in the need to find something solid and real to rid himself from feeling lost.

"I can't accept the way you are now."

Hi voice was a murmur, husky in its warmth, surprising both of them, and she startled him when she showed something other than an emotionless mask for the first time in that evening by shoving him away and choking out, "You couldn't accept me in any way!"

She turned sharply on her heel and fled into the deeper abysses of the rose gardens, but Athrun gave chase.

Cagalli was fast, that he had to give her credit for, especially since she was used to running in the soft, shifting sands in deserts when she had been a Resistance fighter. Her heels were only making her slower now, he realised, as she tripped over a tree root and stumbled, but still kept her balance and ran through the hedges and overhanging branches in near darkness.

She was barely visible in the darkness and her black dress, but her blonde hair, like a faint light at the end of the inky harbor in the night, was a dead giveaway. The slight teasing of the light that entered through trees and the lanterns hung here and there made the diamonds take the appearance of stars reflected on the black sea, and he panted, straining to catch up, straining to catch her.

He was chasing her faster than he had ever trailed an enemy before, and his heart was beating painfully as he gave a final spurt of speed and caught her hand, pulling her back to his side. He silently applauded the fact that she could run in her high heels and thanked fate for giving her those shoes so he could catch up with her so quickly.

She was panting quietly, not trying to run or pull away, but her face was turned away form him, almost as if seeing him pained her. Perhaps it did.

Realising they were both panting in the effort of running, he noticed a small stone bench at the side, covered almost completely by surrounding rose bushes, and led her to it.

They sat there for a while without saying anything, both trying to catch their breath, and as he glanced at Cagalli, he noticed her eyes were glimmering suspiciously. He then called her name in a bid to get a response from her, and when she answered in a voice laced with almost undetectable annoyance, "What?", he realised it was hoarse and muffled like she was trying hard not to cry.

Athrun then knew it had been too much for one night, and gently reached to her hair and rearranged some strands that had come loose, reshuffling the pins such that both were on one side of her head which he preferred. Then for no reason at all, his breath caught and tangled itself as he laid a hand very gently on her cheek and forced her to look at him.

She gazed up at him and he saw that Cagalli's eyes were a little red but filled with uncertainty which he welcomed as a change from the empty twin abysses her eyes had been. She suddenly lifted her arms, precarious and hesitant and they found their way, slowly, around the circumference of his back, and he bear-hugged her, drawing her to him so the distance between their bodies was the breath of a feather's tip, and his breath caught and tangled up like yarn.

Her hair was caught around her face, sweet-smelling, golden hay spun from her scalp, and her cheeks pink, not with the cold, but with something very different. He could not see, his eyes were closed, he was remembering something, fighting to hold something in his mind the way his arms did now.

Some distant part of him was rejoicing as his mind went into the blank mode again. But it was a peaceful blankness that gave him calm he hadn't felt for a long time.

But as fate would have it, an experimental click broke the peace nearby, picked up only by his acute senses of hearing that were no doubt thanks to gene-manipulation. His brain instantly registered that some cameramen had trailed them to get pictures of them. Athrun knew his brain had shifted into another mode altogether, the kind which was prepared to activate his hands into hands that could whirl cameras and smash them if need be.

Athrun was sure the cameramen were definitely closing in somewhere, although he wasn't sure if they had gotten the pictures of both of them hugging. In any case, having to explain why they were both alone and away from her bodyguards' protection would be a hassle, but a sudden rustle diverted both their attention to the bushes behind them.

Unconsciously, he snapped his gaze up just in time to see a lightning whir of brown dart in between Cagalli and him, as a pair of legs swung over the stone bench, effectively separating Cagalli and him. For a moment, he was dazed.

Then Athrun realised with a start that it was Kira who was miraculously seated in between both of them with his arms around both of them and smiling at the cameras that had suddenly surrounded them. He was suddenly aware of how cunning Kira could be and smiled gratefully at his best friend who was becoming more lovable everyday.

As the cue hit in, both of them relaxed into Kira's stance and smiled for the camera while Lacus glided in right on cue. She had arranged herself specifically next to Athrun, avoiding being next to Cagalli so the camaraderie, regardless of the obvious fact that Kira was linked to Lacus, would be well spread.

The arrangement would not look suspicious as long as the males were in between the females, lest the tabloids make a blow-up of the picture and encouraged stories to fly everywhere which was common when it concerned people as well known as the politicians of their time. Being in the spotlight since she was twelve had made Lacus a true master of the media, and she was already smiling at the cameras in a flattering angle.

As soon as the cameras had each gotten a good photograph of them, Lacus raised her voice effectively over the cacophony of clicks and calmly announced that it was a glorious reunion of four good friends. Of course she didn't say anything else.

There was applause again from the cameramen and they ended up taking photos that would surely appear in the newspapers for the next few weeks.

While the cameras were clicking, Athrun, feeling remarkably at ease with the world, glanced at Cagalli who was taking a photo with her brother at the request of a reporter. She was busy along with her brother, not suspecting Athrun was watching her silently. But her practised smile had appeared to be intact as she doled out practised answers and gave bland yet politically correct statements that Athrun would have never dreamt she would give, even if it was a matter of life and death.

He realized, with a jolt of electricity that coursed through him that she hadn't smiled for him that whole evening.

A lone viol was playing in the distance, mournful and joyful in the same phrase. The voice was singing high and clear over the crisp air, of a world beyond his reach, taunting and inviting him to reach for what was before him. Its voice died away in the wind.

And he smiled.

Turning away, he flipped open a cell phone and instructed his secretary to reschedule everything in order for a three days extension in Berlin.

He was very aware, thanks to Kira, that the Chairman Atha's schedule consisted of three more days here for visiting the Earth Alliance and speaking to the people which comprised mainly of Naturals before returning to ORB, and as he cut off his still violently protesting secretary, he made a decision at that very instant.

He was going to get Cagalli to change back for him.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny, which can be a blessing, because if you did, then you'd have legions of ASUCAGA fans waiting to kill you if you didn't get ASUCAGA sorted out.

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Chapter 7 

The morning light was blinding Lacus' eyes as she drew her curtains. Clad in her favourite pair of pink pyjamas, she shivered slightly as a chilling wind rushed through the opened window.

"Winds of change", she said aloud. Winds of change.

She brushed her hair back from her face, and stepped, wincing slightly as her heels tried to adjust after the hours of being pinched in a pair of tiny shoes. Her mouth opened in a tiny sigh of discomfort, but the feeling would eventually fade until the next event. She made sure she could walk properly- it would not be good to stumble around hallways.

Humming a little tune to herself, she walked out into the main hall of the PLANTS ambassador house situated in Earth Alliance's Berlin which she and Kira had settled into for a few months now.

Kira was currently based here to research on the new system of controlling farming machines with an OS similar to a gundam's, and lead a team to integrate and fuse the existing technology Berlin had with the sophisticated Gundam's OS programme of high efficiency to converted and triple the efficiency of the obsolete machinery in that area.

Since most of the Naturals had destroyed their machines and advanced technology the Coordinators had developed, all during the years of turmoil in a bid to show their anti-coordinator stance, there had been very little technology in farmlands and town sides as a whole. It was near impossible to sustain the huge city, added on with the GFAS-X1 Destroy's rampage that had mutilated the country to a horrific mess, Coordinate-area or not. When it had gone out of control, the berserk Destroy had rampaged even EA territories, something EA had never expected would happen.

Having made the decision to discard all coordinator-developed technology was a fatal mistake, Lacus realised, since Berlin's climate had recently shifted towards Russia's freezing climate in the last couple of years, and the agricultural side was not making progress but actually degenerating.

She sighed and made a mental note to speak to the environmental conservationists present in the last night's gala event in order to learn more about the rate of deforestation and global warming that was causing the drastic changes in climate the world would soon see.

"It wasn't a battle between ORB, PLANT and EA now", Lacus thought, more of a battle to pick themselves up and start afresh. Or as Kira had put it, they were 'replanting the flowers'. Shinn Asuka had gone back to ZAFT and was in the midst of instructing new recruits, she had heard, and she prayed that the boy would be happy for as long as he lived.

Hopefully, the tripled-increase of effective machinery Kira would head a team to develop would then fast-forward the technology here and speed up food production to prevent the granaries in Berlin from running out completely as projected in four years time.

Lacus hadn't been quite used to the fact that she would be posted here in a foreign area when PLANT's Supreme Council had sent her here a few months ago, but the place was becoming more and more suited to her tastes, and she was growing increasingly familiar with the area everyday. Besides, Kira was here too, and as long as he was there where she was, she wasn't about to pout and start complaining.

PLANT's council had made a decision for her to represent them in putting forth a decision to relocate a specific group of Berlin Naturals into PLANT and ORB, a joint decision that she and Cagalli would have to make in the next few weeks on how the relocating was to be done and the steps taken in advance to ensure their relocation would be smooth with no glitches.

This was mainly to make a breakthrough in mixing the various groups of people in different, Coordinator-predominant areas of the world, since interaction was ultimately the key to tolerance and understanding that would foster good relations and allow peace. However, it was going to be a field day for workplaces and schools.

Some would feel pressured to keep up and compete with others with superior qualities and some would feel stifled in an area that was progressing too slowly for their liking. But since ORB had managed to handle those problems and counter exactly that, PLANT and EA would just have to learn from it, although it would have to be translated onto an international degree. Controlling one country, no matter how large it was, was obviously much simpler than controlling the world.

ORB was just a single power, and for the plan to work, absolute trust was necessary between leaders of all three powers, hence the gala the night before to work relations better and present a hidden message to the people who would read the newspapers today of what was to come.

With the thought of newspapers fresh in her mind, Lacus jolted to attention and realised she had been standing in the hallway outside her room pondering over dreary thoughts for the last few minutes with a pink toothbrush in her hand.

She grinned and pranced over to the bathroom, promising herself that she would brush her teeth quickly and avoid sitting on the toilet seat with her pants fully done up as she tended to do for nearly twenty minutes every morning, lost in dreams and thoughts. She had much to see today that she wasn't about to miss.

As Lacus turned right and directed her feet towards the bathroom, a blue pajamas-clad Kira collided straight into her and effectively banged his head into hers. She wanted to laugh, but the immediate impact was too blinding.

She had only a quick glimpse of the startled expression his face held before her face was buried in his chest. And her hands roamed wildly, grasping in the air as she lost her balance, but clung on to him somehow. And the glimpse she got of Kira was both pleasing and amusing- he was clad in his pajamas, handsome and somehow childlike all at once.

Simultaneous 'owws' were heard as they retreated a few steps back after the head-on collision. When her head was clear again, she stared up at Kira as he smiled and greeted her, and she beamed back as her haro that had completed its recharging in her room ("almost like sleeping", she thought) bounced up from behind and hit them both on the head once more.

It was cursing and swearing in a colourful language she would have never thought of using in her lifetime, and Lacus suddenly realised that Kira had been fiddling with it again. She smacked him playfully and commanded, "You'd better fix that as soon as possible. I cannot have the ambassadors asking me where I acquired the language from!"

As he grasped the haro that was now spitting nonsensical misquotes from Shakespeare, Kira chortled, issuing a sound she was still getting used to hearing after he had become a withdrawn, placid person after the first war. He had been a little withdrawn even after the second war, but that had changed rapidly after it ended. He had begun to show signs of acting like a child sometimes, perhaps to unconsciously recover his lost childhood and innocence when he had been forced to be a sixteen-year old pilot like so many out there. But those were Coordinators, they were expected to be grown-ups by the time they hit thirteen. Thinking back, that had been ridiculous from the start.

Kira held out papers he had just gotten, yawning a little but still holding the haro so it could not bounce and make a nuisance of itself. Lacus looked at him and knew he was trying his best to readjust to living normally after the second war, and felt her heart swell with pride.

She eagerly reached for the papers he held, for she had been waiting to see them, and beamed with relief as she saw pictures of the four of them in a single camera shot splashed out in the front news with headlines that screamed " Reunion of friends at the Gala Dinner!"

She quickly scanned through the rest of the article and concluded they had been the highlight of the glitzy event that nearly all the important ambassadors and delegates and literati of ORB, PLANT and EA had attended, with follow-up articles of some minor plans and decisions their spokespersons had revealed to the press to inform the people of their plans to further improve relations.

No rumours printed of anything that had been going on before she and Kira had showed up, no intimate shots or anything that would have led to a scandal. "Nothing more", she thought in relief.

"You saved them, didn't you?" she said happily, turning around to face the waiting Kira.

He gently smiled down at her and said quietly, "I had to for now."

As she searched his face for anything that would latch onto what he was thinking other than trying to save Athrun and Cagalli from a possible scandal, she realised that nothing would be found there other than affection.

Humming a tune, she looked down at what he had produced from behind his back and recognized as the pastel-green dress she had worn the night before and had accidentally left it in the bathroom after changing into her pajamas.

"I thought you said you were going to wear the lavender one." Kira said, absently scratching his cheek at a non-existent itch.

She chuckled warmly and took it from him, "I thought a walk down memory lane would have been good for Athrun."

And suddenly, Kira understood why she had left his side to appear in the pastel-green gown in full view of Athrun and why she had chosen a dress so reminiscent of what Cagalli had once worn. The pastel green was pretty on Lacus, but then again, most colours seemed to be. In spite of her pink hair that would have made it wiser to wear either black or white all the time, Lacus chose bright colours to wear half the time. Therefore, both knew that she would have opted for a more feminine colour other than green.

She looked up at him and saw that his face was inscrutable, but that only meant that he was thinking hard. Ignoring the need to rashly throw her arms around him to hug and comfort him because she was reminded of that face she saw often during the war, she straightened up and told him she'd be down for breakfast in a jiffy. She knew he was strong enough now. She never wanted to see him the way he had looked again when he had told her at age sixteen, that he'd killed Nicole Amalfi. Choking back a sob, she swiftly made her way to the bathroom.

Not quite notching Lacus' reddening eyes, Kira watched her scamper like a pink rabbit into the toilet, and wondered how she had maintained so much of her youth and innocence even after watching her own look-a-alike die in her arms at eighteen.

He remembered the way she had not cried when Siegel Clyne had died and the way she had said so quietly during the first war, "I just wanted to tell you that" before her throat went faulty and her words choked together. He had watched her carefully and saw the look of intense sorrow that drifted upon her face when she had laid her head upon his shoulder. She hadn't cried when she had wanted to tell him that she had lost her father, she just sought comfort from a place she wanted to find it from. He hadn't loved her at first sight, he had to admit that to himself as much as he didn't want to, because Fllay had been around at that time. But after she had left the Archangel, he had felt somehow very lost in a place he thought was familiar to him, and that was when he knew.

The way she had sobbed her heart out while he silently held her close when they had put Mia Campbell to rest was still fresh in his mind. He was always awkward when females cried, he didn't know how to react, but being there for her had been the most crucial at that time. Eighteen was a tender age to watch someone die in your arms, he thought, but then again, fifteen was also a little young to kill another boy barely his age as he had done. That was what they were trying to prevent.

Another war with the same mistakes and the same unmistakeable consequences.

Distracted from his thoughts by the sounds of Lacus' long hair swishing and the door closing, he watched the last of Lacus disappearing behind the door and promised himself that he'd do anything to protect them all by preventing another war.

The Bloody Valentine war in C.E 70 and the second one in C.E 73 had taken a toll on all their mental states for a period of time, but that was over now, and as far as he was concerned, he'd make sure it never happen again.

He walked to a large French window at the side after hearing the roar of an obviously high-performance engine and saw a familiar Black Lamborghini pull up at the embassy house that Lacus and he had moved into a month ago. Gazing at the sleek lines of the vehicle, he admitted to himself that his best friend did have very good taste. After all, he had been together with his sister, so it was natural he had good taste.

Harrumphing aloud at his own humour that he had developed after the war's horrors were gone from his mind and his dreams at night, Kira trampled down the stairs to greet Athrun who had turned up very early for breakfast with Lacus and him.

Lacus watched both friends embrace in the veranda from the tiny window she had opened in the bathroom and sighed absently to herself. From where she was, she could see that Kira had forgotten to change out of his blue-cartooned pyjamas and was hugging Athrun and greeting him enthusiastically. She couldn't help noting that Athrun in contrast, was impeccably decked in a work suit that fit beautifully. The reporters would have a field day about ORB's head of Engineering Science and Technology's abysmal fashion sense. Kira was such a child at times.

As they sat down to breakfast, Lacus laughingly clucked her tongue like a mother hen at Kira who suddenly realised he was still clad in his pyjamas even after finishing his wash-up. He hastily excused himself and ran up the stairs to change while Lacus and Athrun laughed at the intelligent engineer who had revamped so many technological systems in the past two years than what seemed humanely possible, but seemed to be more absent-minded than an average person at times.

As Lacus' personal android served them breakfast, she smiled at her former fiancée who had created her haro army. His lips quirked up at her, and she saw a glint of silver near his neck when he moved to pour himself a drink. Squinting carefully, she saw a flash of ruby at the base of the string that he wore almost hidden from other's eyes. It suddenly hit her that it was the engagement ring Cagalli had once wore, and she smiled slyly up at him.

She quietly pondered about the first time she had realised when she was about sixteen that she hadn't really felt for Athrun the way she now felt for Kira. When she had first stepped aboard the Archangel, she had been perfectly at ease, much to the amazement of those aboard the Archangel.

And she never lost her calm even when they threatened to murder her. The reason was only known to herself, she hadn't even told Kira because she knew it would disturb him immensely. He had asked her how she had been so collected and gentle in such a tense situation, but she had merely shrugged and told him she didn't know why she was like that either.

The truth was that when she had stepped aboard, she had already been prepared to die. In her safety pod, she had been so frightened she couldn't even cry out while her haro screamed for help. By the time a giant hand grabbed the pod which she identified as a gundam's, she was ready to die.

At that time, the sixteen-year old Lacus knew very well that people had died on the Silver Wing to protect her, and she knew through the blur of fear that her friends had joined ZAFT to fight and left her behind with virtually nobody left, since her father very rarely came home. When she had been eleven, she had sung herself out of depression, although nobody actually knew she had. She herself didn't know she had until she re-read her diary when she was fourteen and she had been in a better mental state by then. By the time they realised that she had a beautiful voice and could be marketable, she had already become the Princess of PLANT.

Lacus Clyne had very little to live for in reality. Had the Archangel crew killed her, she would have willingly died, because she had very little to treasure at that time. She had been prepared to die when she stepped out of the life-pod, but a young brown-haired boy had taken her hand and pulled her to him, effectively giving her hope.

She hadn't wanted to notice the way he had looked at Fllay but she couldn't help it, but at that time, she hadn't realised that what she was feeling were the stirrings of first love. Only when she had returned to PLANT with every strand of hair intact had she looked at the world and said quietly to herself, "I want to live for myself."

To the world, she was a perfect princess with everything she needed and the kind of eternal light that would shine even in a world stained with blood and lies. But Lacus would never tell Kira what she had thought when she had first stepped onto the Archangel.

Athrun had been the first boy she had ever been close too, but that was arranged since their parents had brought them into an engagement. She was quite sure that he hadn't kissed any girl before her, because he had been so awkward that she had laughed helplessly for days after that.

Athrun had been sipping his drink when he noticed Lacus' twinkling blue eyes and her sly smile that was a rare sight compared to her usually open smile. He followed her line of vision and was met by the ruby ring he had fastened around a chain that had been slightly revealed to eyes other than his own. He redirected his eyes to Lacus' blue ones and saw her looking directly at him.

"Meyrin gave that back to you, didn't she now?" she asked sweetly.

He didn't answer straightaway, but retorted, a little defensively, "How'd you know that anyway?"

She grinned, showing him a very nice set of white teeth and replied, "She told me. We are friends obviously, since Copernicus' shopping malls agreed with both of us very well."

Athrun looked at her carefully and saw she wasn't lying. Then he recalled how excited the younger Hawke girl and Lacus had been, like children opening presents, when they were shopping, and shook his head.

" What else did she say?" he muttered, staring straight into her face while she relaxed into her chair and started chopping the top bit of her boiled egg off.

"W-ell, about a year ago, I was reading the newly chosen set of laws PLANT would enforce that required part of my approval, you know, the code 1831, but I was distracted by a call. Meyrin called me and she asked if she could come round to my office to speak to me, because her sister was off training in some remote island she wasn't quite too sure about, and in any case, she didn't feel quite comfortable confiding in either Lunamaria or Shinn.

Meyrin admitted that her sister was too busy with her own training in ZAFT, and as for Shinn, well; she said she was a bit afraid of him when her sister wasn't around to control him. So of course I invited the dear girl over and she told me everything."

Lacus paused for breath and raised her eyes to his, her hands still busy with the egg shell ceremony, as Kira had called it. She had so many quirks, it was quite normal for her to be extraordinary anyway.

"What else did she say?" Athrun asked, curiously, never quite understanding why Meyrin who had been his impromptu secretary had suddenly resigned and given him the ring with no explanation for either action.

In fact, he was still puzzled where she had obtained the ring from, since it couldn't have been Cagalli who had taken it off her finger and passed it to either her brother or Lacus eons ago at that time. All for one damned Seiran, he thought dully.

"She gave it to Meyrin you know, not me or Kira." Lacus said, clearly but with a hint of sudden sadness.

She? Cagalli did? He could hardly believe his ears. It didn't make sense to him there and then at that point.

"You're lying aren't you? She could never have given it to Meyrin! She didn't even have it at that time when I woke up after defecting from ZAFT and saw her sitting next to me!" he cried, astonished that he had been so ignorant of anything that had been going on.

"Cagalli passed it to her before she left the ship to go back to ORB as we were heading off for the final battle at Messiah," Lacus said quietly, "and then she told Meyrin to look after you for her before giving her the ring and leaving."

He stared at Lacus with wide eyes as she calmly started peeling the thin membrane of her egg, trying to take in the revelation that had been placed in front of him without him least expecting it. He tried to open his mouth to speak but could not find the words that could be plucked out correctly.

Lacus had finished peeling the membrane off her egg and was using a silver spoon to divide into halves, quarters then eights, pausing only to continue when she had finished dividing the egg into neat portions.

"She realised you would never have any feelings for her that would come as close to those you used to have for Cagalli, ' Lacus quiet voice seemed to be saying to him from a distance, and suddenly, he felt a roar in his head like a waterfall that had suddenly exploded through a rock crevice.

"I still have those feelings!" he roared, not quite caring if anyone could hear him, and then he was suddenly was aware that he had leapt to his feet and was towering over Lacus who was now eating an eighth of the egg daintily.

A wave of shame swept over him as he realised that even now, this was the first time in two long years that he had admitted the fact that he still harbored the feelings to himself when he had only meant to admit it to Lacus.

"Do you now? Why then, were you so distant and uncaring when news was everywhere that she was marrying Yuna Roma Seiran?

Why then, were you so harsh to her when she and Kira met you after the Battle of Gulnahan and Dardanelles?

Why then, did you not say anything to Cagalli on board the Archangel when you awoke beside her, such that it would have made her come back to you?" Lacus countered, her eyes like chips of blue steel, placing aside the egg for the first time that morning. Her hands were folded in her skirt, but they were trembling like leaves swept by a breeze. She made sure he couldn't see how rattled she was, then she looked at him, placing the right amount of frown in her face to pick a fight. She knew that was the only way.

He glared at her, not really quite angry with her but at the whole situation. He opened his mouth to tell her exactly why he had been so cold and distant, how he had wanted to hurt Cagalli at that time for hurting him, and how he knew it would have been impossible to make her stay on board the Archangel when ORB had needed her so badly two years ago.

He wanted to tell Lacus everything, but as he opened his mouth to speak, she spoke first, and to his surprise, her eyes were suddenly moist and her tone was gentle. She had given up picking a fight and goading him into blasting out everything he kept inside, because she suddenly realised there wasn't a need to. She had been the defeated in their battle of wills.

"I know everything that you wanted to say. But she doesn't. At that time, ORB needed her so badly you had to be paced at second priority, but right now, this isn't the case. The worst is over, because these two years weren't spent in vain! Don't you see that you just have to tell her what you were about to say just only to me, to make it all come back together, Athrun?" she whispered, reaching forward to place a hand on his cheek.

He remained silent, sinking into his chair once more and subsequently allowed her to brush away the unwelcome wetness at the side of his own eyes. He didn't know why he was tearing, but perhaps it had to do with the realization that getting her back was not going to be as simple as saying a simple sorry and doing a bit of an explanation.

Both of them knew that Cagalli was changed, her true self hidden beneath thick veneers of cold ice that made her a stranger to him, and her warmth and fire was ebbing away. The pain of not being able to do anything because they didn't know what to do exactly was causing the ache in both his and Lacus' chests, and he was suddenly weary of the unspoken problems, the uncovered promises and the seemingly hopelessness of the whole issue.

But he felt Lacus's soft hand on his cheek and her comforting gaze, and wondered how he could have pushed her away when they were fifteen as he snapped at a startled Lacus that he couldn't possibly be fighting a war with a smile on his face.

She was suddenly smiling at him and telling him it would all be better soon if he made the first move with determination, and he felt the steel of core in him expanding as he picked up his own spoon and firmly cut his own egg into halves, quarters, then eights. She smiled at him again, and they wiped their eyes and tried desperately to regain their composure before Kira came back.

Kira, hidden behind a pillar adjoined to the staircase, quietly left and went back to his room. He had known Lacus would speak to Athrun and try to help sort his thoughts out, and as soon as he had left the table, he had hidden behind a pillar that would conceal him entirely to hear the conversation. He hadn't wanted to eavesdrop initially, but Lacus would surely understand why he had to do what he did.

He quickly shed himself of his pajamas and changed into a suit, then randomly counted to twenty just to be sure, and then he walked down once more. When he arrived, Lacus was excitedly telling Athrun something about how the haro's speech could be reprogrammed into a language unknown to human ears and only to dolphins, and Athrun was keenly commenting that it was an ingenious idea to improve communications and understanding between humans and animals, and asking if Kira had developed the system.

Clearing his throat expectantly, Kira viewed the two pairs of slightly red eyes that darted instantly to him, watching as his lover and best friend smiled at him with an ease that pleased him greatly.

Tori abruptly flew over his head, flapping its steel wings with loud snapping sounds and then pointedly commented in a series of mechanical chirps what a disgrace it was to eat eggs in front of a bird, providing a rather late announcement to Kira's re-entrance at the dining table, while Lacus laughed and Athrun grinned.

"Yes, I did," he said proudly.

Turning away, he flipped open a cell phone and instructed his secretary to reschedule everything in order for a three days extension in Berlin.

He was very aware, thanks to Kira, that the Chairman Atha's schedule consisted of three more days here for visiting the Earth Alliance and speaking to the people which comprised mainly of Naturals before returning to ORB, and as he cut off his still violently protesting secretary, he made a decision at that very instant.

He was going to get Cagalli to change back for him.


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny, which can be a blessing, because if you did, then you'd have legions of ASUCAGA fans waiting to kill you if you didn't get ASUCAGA sorted out.

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Chapter 8 

She wanted to kill him.

Or not.

Perhaps, not something as drastic as murder, but a few tight slaps would do just fine. He looked at her emotionlessly, and she wondered if he was an automaton with Athrun's eyes or a man who had lost the ability to feel.

For Cagalli was trying her best not to scream, whip out the gun she had placed out of habit in her top drawer on the right of her fine mahogany desk her temporary office had, and fire it at the man who stood in front of her with a cold, grim semi-smile she loathed.

He was waiting for her response. The cheek he had.

She squeezed out a tight smile at him and then, found that her voice was relatively steady.

'If you compare it to Mount Etna, why not?' She thought sardonically.

But still, she had succeeded. She had mildly, with a regal air she had never known she could possess in her state, asked to be left alone to handle the work he had placed on her table. It wasn't the amount that upset her. With it, he had brought a newspaper of the event the night before.

"I told you," His eyes seemed to say. She hated it.

When he left, she calmly pushed her chair backwards so she could stand, then went to the side and made sure nobody was around to see her. And in an instant, Cagalli had made a very rude finger gesture at the stool, imagining he was the secretary she was forced to keep.

Benjamin Goebbels had been assigned as her personal assistant after she had officially become the Chairman of the united Emirates of ORB two years ago. She had no complaints. But come to think of it, she never had any. Not after she had married Yuna- that had been the icing of it all.

Sometimes, she was haunted by the memories that became dreams. But certain things were more important, their priority and crucial nature made it easier to forget.

It still pained her to see, everyday, that Goebbel's eyes were the exact same shade as another pair of eyes she had tried her best to forget about. Once, her desperation had been so acute that Cagalli had even considered replacing the secretary who had Athrun-sodding- Zala's green eyes.

She couldn't bear looking at the green eyes that she had tried so hard to not remember for the past two years, but Goebbels was terribly efficient if there ever had been an efficient person in ORB, and the way he handled the work assigned to him was wonderful. Truly. There was simply no other word to describe his machine-like abilities, he handled everything without a single complaint and he handled it perfectly. She often wondered if he ever perspired, but no, apparently not.

He could be a little stifling now and then, but had he not been there to instruct her on the best option of behaviour at the various press conferences and advised her to practise speaking in the impersonal, netural tone,, she would scarcely have gained such a foothold in ORB in such a short time. Not while condemning the Seirans anyway.

She vividly remembered explaining to the Houses in political power that the Seirans had betrayed them all. One had asked, "Is it a personal grudge?"

And she had replied, without a trace of emotion in her voice, the way h'd trained her to answer, "What is it in my face and voice that suggests that?"

Nothing, clearly nothing. Her entrails were burning inside as she spoke, calmly and deathly composed.

Without a singly doubt, her people respected her. There was something about being the princess that discounted her age and the mistakes that she'd made. And the polls had shown that very clearly, but on her part, Goebbels had said, she needed to improve herself to ensure the respect would be forever. And if that hadn't won her over, nothing else would.

She hadn't wanted to argue by that time, she had known that she had no more strength left. There was nothing to argue about, nothing to try and swim against in the current like this one. Because currents were there, always there, one couldn't beat against it the way she'd tried, like a boat, individual and always struggling to stay afloat, one simply had to follow the current.

In her heart, she knew she was like a simple rock, solid and real, but nothing could withstand the test of time and weathering elements in the end, let alone a single rock. She was the rock, she'd never be able to stay the same way and somehow survive.

Goebbels was a year older than her, and he had been raised in an ORB orphanage when his coordinator parents were killed in a scuffle in EA's territories near Heaven's Gate. Not that she cared about his past or anything personal to do with that, he was merely a valuable subordinate, although he did influence her barely existing personal life to a large extent.

He would instruct her how to behave, what to wear and not to run around as she had once loved to do. Not that she minded of course, it had proved successful so far even as she plunged into piles of paperwork after a Cabinet meeting every morning after a quick breakfast. Those were necessary, and she found that work wasn't a burden- it was a purpose. She was hardly a workaholic, rather, the desire to do her best was the motivation.

All the same, Cagalli had hardly any time left for her own leisure because of her fanatical management of the work. She could have requested for a change, in her heart, she knew Kisaka would have arranged it in a snap of his fingers, but it was for the best, she decided, if ORB could recover as quickly as it was doing now, which proved her efforts were successful.

She had gotten a long-distance call from Shinn last year, and his voice had been a little more mellow and deep, and she knew he had grown up.

Imagining him now was no mean feat. Supposing he had cut his unruly hair a little to reveal his eyes? Supposing his eyes were no longer narrowed with a deep loathing of the world around him, but were individual rubies, softened and forgiving? Supposing he'd found his redemption with those around him?

He had apologised for everything he had said and what he'd done, and his stammer had made her heart ache. She could do nothing more than to casually wave it off and told him she would like to see him again. Shinn had eagerly agreed and told her he would bring Lunamaria too, and she had raised her eyebrows while on the phone and said that she would like to see her very much too. She knew Lunamaria mollycoddled Shinn; Lunamaria was exactly that sort of girl. Not that Shinn minded of course.

Pausing to rub her eyes and take a break from the documents she had been reading, she strolled over to a nearby table where the newspapers of the morning had been placed, shaking her head and ruffling her hair before straightening it before Goebbels told her to himself with that slight frown of his.

She picked up the newspapers and smiled fondly at the four of them that had united last night, although the encounter had shaken her a fair bit where ETERNITY's chairman was concerned.

The night was a little hazy, like those memories that didn't come smoothly enough but with a glide here and there and a bump that was none too pleasant. And Cagalli suspected that she knew why.

She had tried to avoid him throughout the whole night, and she had wanted to throttle her brother when she found out that he had offered to help the organiser arrange the seating of the various guests, because she had bee placed directly opposite the man she was trying to avoid. Kira being helpful- a bit of a contradiction.

And Cagalli had wondered, just before she dozed off to sleep the night before, why Lacus had been wearing a pastel-green gown instead of the lavender one Kira had said she would be wearing in an effort for her not to clash with what the PLANT ambassador was wearing, but had placed the thought aside after seeing him again.

Athrun Zala.

He looked impeccable. He was already perfect before anybody's eyes could travel fully from his toes to his face, the lithe torso and the grace that flowed inherently and internally gave him a panther's rippling, slender power and the composure and confidence he exuded was that of a man who was desirable and not easily turned down.

She had almost wanted to turn and run on seeing him, although she had known he would be there. After all, he was PLANT's main Security Council's chairman; it'd have been a disgrace if he hadn't turned up. She could only thank Goebbels' thorough drilling and training that made her so fluid in her speech as she walked up to the platform to address the high ranking officials and important people there that night.

She had almost lapsed into a stammering upon seeing him, catching sight of him in his deep maroon suit, a lone figure stationary in the sea of colors and blinding jewels. He wore nothing in his pocket, not even a rose. But his eyes had been blazing forests in emerald lights.

Her mind hadn't registered anything that she was saying last night, everything was already in place like a memory disc, and all she had to do was regurgitate it out. She really didn't trust herself anymore after being thrown into a situation like that, and perhaps that had ruffled her so much that a nosebleed, which she hadn't had since she was thirteen, then started.

Naturally, Cagalli had been quite mortified when the blood had dripped down onto the pristine-white tablecloth. For a minute, she wanted to scream in anguish. The lace, once white, was a rust color.

She had felt that she was taking away the innocence of something else that didn't deserve to be soaked in blood and lies like she already was, and she thought that she had lost her mind for a split-second.

And Cagalli hadn't even protested when her wardrobe manager had told her to take out the only black dress she had in her closet and put it on. Rainie, her bodyguard, had tried to brighten her up by pining especially pretty pins on her hair, but Cagalli hadn't said anything even though she had refused to wear black almost all of her life because she was secretly afraid of the somber colour and its implications.

The dress had caught the light and swallowed it in its sea of ink that was its entire length. The stones on it were elegant but accomplices of the dark, drawing light to the dress only to have it reflect nowhere else but her face. And she had burned from inside, because she had felt thousands of eyes bore into her. She was used to it.

But it didn't make the difference.

When she had seen him again, she was glad that she had worn black. No light-colours that she had worn during their time together because she had been so happy she felt like singing about spring everyday. None at all. Just black. She had told him to leave her alone, but he didn't take heed.

That was Athrun Zala. Firm and used to having his way, somehow.

Cagalli paused and glanced at Athrun's smiling face that was directly placed in between Kira's and Lacus' faces. His smile was solemn, as if he knew something that he was prevented from speaking of, but something his thoughts were preoccupied with there and then. Solemn, his eyes grave and sharp, his face almost beautiful, his mouth very questioning and sad, but somehow not quite feminine either, something lurking about his face and the way he carried himself that was clearly deadly masculine and- attractive.

She quickly flipped the page.

She hadn't meant to throw her arms around him the night before after he had caught up with her while she had desperately tried to flee from him, so as to prevent any tantrums from blowing out. She hadn't lost her temper for two years, and she wasn't about to break her record.

But he had taken chances with her, and she wondered what he really wanted. Was he fulfilling something as a friend would?

And Cagalli never knew what people wanted these days, in the past she took their words at face-value, but Goebbels had trained her to second-guess everything they said as a good politician should do. She had wanted to scream that she wasn't supposed to be a bloody detective, but she had learnt his ways anyway. No wonder then, that she was being so paranoid about everything anyone said these days.

She flipped open the newspapers and ignored all the first four pages of articles summing up what had gone on last night at the congregation. It was bad enough that they had to discuss everything for the past few months, she wasn't about to read through everything again if she could help it.

Then Cagalli scanned through the back pages where the news was more likely to show pop stars than politicians, and suddenly spotted a sprightly red-haired model wearing the latest fall collection, in splashes of decadent golds and rich, almost cloying sepias, and the model featured forcibly reminded her of Meyrin. Not Luna, Luna had maroon hair, but Meyrin, her hair was that exact same shade of red.

She stared at the model's hair, snorting loudly when she saw that the roots were blonde. Dyed, obviously, because nobody could get hair as naturally intense-coloured as Meyrin's red hair unless they were from the Hawke family or had their genes tampered with. Which was probably what Meyrin's parents had done of course, she decided, and snorted at her own sense of irony.

Cagalli could have never hated Meyrin Hawke even if someone had taken a gun and pointed it at her just to get her to hate Meyrin. She had known the minute she laid eyes on the lovely sixteen-year old, that the girl was a lost one when it came to Athrun Zala.

He was good-looking, even Cagalli knew that. But he had a deep sensitivity that drew people near to him, his inscrutable ways, difficult to read, made people want to be near him, to know him. And she had seen Meyrin's eyes- wide and hopeful, wistful even. Because she understood Meyrin- that girl did not understand Athrun Zala yet, but had most of the pieces in her hands. But Meyrin Hawke didn't have the last piece yet, and the picture would never form.

And Cagalli had hoped that the last piece would be experience and time. So she had given the ring Athrun had gave her, although it pained her precisely, to know that the pain wasn't great when she gave the ring to Meyrin. At that time, only war and Orb had been on her mind.

But the girl had spunk and it helped that she was very beautiful and could hack computers as well as professionals. Come to think of it, Meyrin had been a professional hacker by the time she had hit eleven. The girl was obviously in love with Athrun, and Cagalli had known that almost intuitively. But she knew, all the same. Athrun was blind, but if Cagalli now tried to tell herself that if she allowed them more time, gave Meyrin time that might have been hers even without Cagalli's help, he would soon see.

Were they together now? Perhaps, in love and immersed in their own happiness and lives, even with Meyrin's youth being either an attraction or a sort of barrier?

Cagalli looked at the floor and sighed inwardly, not knowing what to think.

So she had allowed it, even going as far as to encourage it. But she never gave herself time to ask if she regretted it, she knew what the truth was, but she didn't allow herself to even venture into that particular danger-zone.

She staggered back to her seat in the office that had been lent to her for her stay in Earth Alliance's territory, and tried to get back to whatever she had been doing. She knew that the three days here were meant as a break, Lacus had arranged outings personally for her. But Cagalli had lost so much of what she had previously possessed, that work seemed like the only way to feel a sense of fulfillment when she could have gotten the same feeling by simply watching the sky even when she was in the midst of a war a few years ago.

Again, she wasn't a hopeless workaholic, the kind that was slave to her work. She was more than that. She would bleed for the land her father had died for, bleed willingly and bleed until she could offer nothing more for her people's happiness. And in doing that, she would live as she had been meant to.

She couldn't blame anyone. There was nothing to blame. She would have come to this situation- had she remained in her country, even if the war had never swept the world along with it, and her father left to live his life, she would have been forced to marry Yuna Roma Seiran sooner or later, and she'd have to answer to him as a husband and the power he would have yielded would have been immense but unsatisfactorily used. No- better she, Cagalli Yula Atha hold the reins, never mind the sacrifice.

Besides, she thought with a smirk, he was, in Kisaka's own words, a 'lily-livered pansy of a bastard fool.'

Cagalli snorted in the most un-lady like manner she could muster, but felt a wave of self-disgust rise up and threaten to overpower her when she realised her cheeks were warm from embarrassment of snorting. Why was she even embarrassed?

She felt her cheeks- warm like loaves of freshly baked bread, and she cringed inside. She didn't have to look to know their color.

Everything was becoming a fixed routine to her, her composed speech, her impeccable manners, her fine dresses that replaced the rather mannish suits she used to wear, and the uniform that she had once insistently donned had its bottom part replaced by a more feminine skirt in the military style to match the upper half. It looked like Muruue's now, it bared her knees and calves and gave her a womanliness she had never allowed to be bared for fear of something she did not quite understand either.

It was becoming of her, yes, she knew it was, intrinsically, what with the stares she had never quite gotten when she'd been donned in cargo pants in the desert, Not that she could that now anyway. Too much had changed, like those clocks that were frozen in denial, and then moved faster than ever once the ice of ignorance thawed. She was like that as well.

Had he known that?

Athrun had been upset. She knew that, she had endorsed it, in fact, she'd said the things she'd known he would surely have yelled at her, and he had, hadn't he? She had changed, but so had the world. Betrayal, disappointment, life's little ironies, bitter and sharp were like almonds she had taken and eaten, one by one, understanding the twinge of regret, the pain of bitter sweetness, all that the war had shown her, like so many others who had fought in it. She wasn't going to deny it herself, but she hadn't expected him to understand her anyway.

She had left the Archangel when they had set off to Messiah, and she had left as a changed person. She was going to keep up for as long as she could, perhaps forever. Yuna would have been surprised, she thought wryly. He had never seen her as someone who could lead, he had always assumed that she would be only good for a bit of a chase and a graceful descent into oblivion once the heirs had been produced, that sort of girl.

She was as sure as hell that she wasn't that sort.

But oh, how good it had been for her to knock Yuna Roma Seiran half-senseless that day! Even Kira hadn't tried to stop her, he knew she felt guilt for the state her country was in and how much she had blamed herself for the mistakes she had made.

Her eyes closed now, remembering the past.

Yuna had given her a string of magnificent pearls, milky and like individual moons, he had placed it around her neck himself, did the clasp with his fingers while she reluctantly held up her hair to expose the sensitive skin of her neck. And he had told her that she was his now and tried to kiss her; she had demurred. His wedding gift to her, Yuna had said, his eyes roving, excited, like a man who had suddenly know he would own the world, and his smile smug like he had obtained the sun and would know how to control it.

An hour later, she had been found in her room, quiet and pale, withdrawn, trying to sleep, trying to forget her betrayal, how she'd betrayed the one man she'd loved, and the pearls, worth a hundred thousand dollars or something more, were lying, blind and sad, in a wastepaper basket.

"I'll give my hand," She had said when they questioned her.

The trusty Mana had already sent the letter.

A minute later, the pearls were in their velvet box again. She refused to wear them for the wedding. She left her neck bare and exposed to the world she would have to fight to live in.

And she had been frightened when she had put on her elaborate wedding gown, felt the fresh flowers being tucked here and there, her hands being tussled upwards, unsteady, so they could grip the bouquet, how they'd found her white and resolute, sitting on her bed, without a single tear shed or a single word of complaint.

Half an hour later, she was walking by his side, without a single word or a single thing she could think of saying. Her lips were painted pink, her lids slightly lavender with a soft powder she hadn't cared to put on but had allowed someone to.

She had only cried in the car when she had been forced to smile and wave like a performing monkey at the people around, and she knew she could fool them but not herself. Even Yuna had known the truth; that her heart wasn't with her or him. He had known, but he had ignored it. But if Yuna knew anything, then anyone and everyone must have had already.

She had wanted to punch him that day too, see his jaw break, watch his blood stain her white gloves at their wedding, but she knew that she had lost. She was ready to surrender and just throw in the damned towel, but Kira had came. Lost in confusion and rage, Cagalli had erupted and screamed at him, but she had always been grateful to her twin for making a life-changing decision for her.

Aboard the Archangel, Cagalli had stayed in her room and fingered the ring Lacus returned to her, knowing fully that she was pining away for somebody else. She had dreamt of his green eyes for countless of nights, but when she saw them again, they were full of hatred, and she had been stunned to realise that they were directed at her.

She had said very little during that meeting because Kira had been there, but when she had reached out for him, he had turned and cruelly walked away. She hadn't cried, no, not in front of Kira, but she had gone into her room and wept while she stuffed her fist in her mouth so nobody would hear her.

She opened her eyes. Time, each grain was a second and the hourglass's gap was but a sand's millimeter, a particle at a time, slow, but sure.

Now, she just wanted to lose herself forever and just do what she had to do to live.

The tension had been somehow released as she punched the person who had manipulated her straight on, and she had commanded for him to be brought away and jailed when she realised she was near to killing him with her bare fists. She longed for that kind of release now, but knew it was downright impossible.

Yuna was dead, so any options of a punching bag were gone. Of course, the pillow was another option, but she didn't dare to flop down and screech and cry and yell to release her pent-up emotions and blinding anger at being as suppressed as she suddenly felt she was. She was admittedly afraid that she'd lose everything that she had worked so hard for, and that was the cold hard truth whether she liked to admit it or not. There was only so much stubbornness would allow, and hot-headedness, the passion that had surged through her eyes and her body once, would have to be binded for the greater good.

Yesterday had been frightening when she had lost a bit of her resolve and cried a little in front of him. And yet, Cagalli was still proud that she hadn't dissolved entirely when he had hugged her, although she would have to manage herself better from now on if they ever met again.

Not that she'd want to of course.

She bit her lip as she thought of these thoughts.

For it was guaranteed that she had cried, and if she had cried a little and even hugged him on seeing him on their first meeting after not seeing him for nearly two years, there was no telling what she might do if she saw him more frequently.

Cagalli paused the absent-minded flipping of the newspapers and looked into the mirrors that lined the sides of the new office. She was suddenly immensely glad that her own office back in ORB where her father used to work didn't have any of those, because she hadn't wanted to see her reflection if she could avoid it at all. It simply wasn't that she looked inappropriate, the truth was far from that. Contrary to what the others thought, Cagalli, primped, combed, instructed, stiffly graceful, as ridiculous as it seemed, and made proper for all the events she attended, would have broken down.

Now, she was staring at a blonde girl who would hit twenty in a few months time but with eyes so dull it looked like a stranger's eyes. Strange mouth, nothing of that mark of character she had once carried on her face. And she was a stranger.

Her hair was still kept short, slightly above her shoulders, for she had insisted on that even while her personal consultants and Goebbels had tried to persuade her to keep her hair long to soften her image. She wasn't about to grow long hair, she decided. Her father never had any problems with her wild untamed blond mane; she didn't see why the others should.

She had avoided looking into the mirror for the past two years, but anyway, she had never really been obsessed with her appearance from the start. But now, her image startled her, maybe because she hadn't seen herself in broad daylight and up close on such a personal level before. It was vaguely distressing.

And Cagalli placed her hands on her waned cheeks unconsciously to see if the person staring back was really her, and when she finally couldn't stand it any longer, she spun around and squatted down, pulling yanks of her hair as she had once done when she was unable to think clearly.

She hadn't cried out loud for nearly two years, but teared, yes, maybe when she was tired or a little upset like last night, but not like what she felt she owed herself today.

But first, she had to make sure nobody could hear her, because she was too embarrassed to let them know she wanted to break down although it was just for one stupid measly day, and all because she was afraid that they'd think she was going mad.

So she strode to the edges of her room, blinded by the onslaught of tears that blurred her vision, and locked all the doors and windows in the office she was getting to like more and more, and promptly squatted down, near the mirror, and then sobbed and sobbed and sobbed like she hadn't done for the longest time.

She wasn't sad, she was in a sort of desperate rage.

And she raged, anger reared through her like a snake, reared its head and silently screamed. She was asking why she had made the decisions she had, why she was like this now, and why she was even bothering to shed tears for the past.

Her phone rang in the midst of her emotional release, and Cagalli was forced to wipe her eyes and snatch a few tissues before answering the phone which had started to ring almost insistently.

Muttering something unintelligible, she flipped the phone open and said in the steadiest voice she could muster, "Chairman Atha here. Who is this speaking?"

She heard Kira's voice and heard him saying, "Cagalli, can you meet Lacus and me down at the PLANT embassy house in an hour or so?"

In a daze, she was hastily clearing the hoarseness from her throat and telling him yes, she'd be there in an hour's time. As she put the phone down, she wondered if they'd be having lunch together, and decided that she could really use the three-day break that Lacus had so kindly planned for her.

Obviously, Lacus was more or less familiar with the area after being posted here for nearly a month, hence her ease at planning the short break she had offered to Cagalli last night. But first, she'd have to explain everything to her secretary so he could make the following arrangements.

She dried her eyes and checked her reflection to see if she looked like she had been crying. Thankfully, it wasn't so obvious except for the red-rims which she could pass off as a bad night's results if she was asked about it, and she counted to twenty like how she had taught Kira to do when they needed to calm down or wait. Twenty was like a magic number to her at times, but in fact, Ahmed had taught her to do that when she was a resistance fighter in Desert Dawn and they were waiting for enemies to arrive from their hiding places.

Somehow, twenty counts were always enough to see the enemies pouring like black beetles out of their lairs, it never failed.

She called in for Goebbels, realising that she had never addressed him by his first name before, and watched as the fairly handsome coordinator strode in. He raised an eyebrow at her red-eyes, but didn't bother asking what was wrong.

Thank Goddess Haumea, she thought, randomly subbing in the goddess of fertility's name that some ORB tribes and the Desert Dawn resistance troops had revered.

"Goebbels, I'm going to use the three days I have left here to explore the area and get some firsthand experience of what life for the Naturals is like here without a trace of any Coordinator's influence. It'll help in the process of relocating naturals that have never lived with Coordinators before, don't you think so?" she said smoothly, thinking how her words were a far cry from the time she had tried to lie and would end up flushed in the face and angry from the effort it took to lie.

Her eyes had always given her away because they couldn't look straight at any person she was trying to lie to, but now she had no problem with that. No problem at all.

Her secretary looked at her with keen eyes behind his glasses, and she wondered to herself why he saw a need to wear glasses when she knew for a fact that he had perfect vision.

"If that's the best course of action you feel is possible Chairman, do go ahead," he replied mechanically, although he was obviously paying more attention to her messy hair than her ill-concealed distress. He was such a downright bastard at times, that he was, but she'd let it go. It wasn't as if she had much of a choice anyway.

If her secretary had been anyone else with a little more warm blood than Goebbels, they might have asked her what was wrong and showed the slightest hint of concern. Rainie would have bopped up to her and thrown her arms around her although bodyguards weren't supposed to do that kind of thing. But Rainie was only sixteen this year, she was but a child. But he was like a machine, effective but emotionless, but then she was becoming that too. He was teaching her how.

She sighed inwardly and waved him out of the office, gathering a few crucial papers she wanted to deal with in the next few days and then on impulse, rushing to her personal room next door and sweeping a few sets of clothes and a few dresses and cosmetics into her suitcase.

Two shirts, a few other things, toothbrush, a hairbrush she would borrow from Lacus-

Maybe if she begged hard enough, Lacus would let her bunk in at the PLANT embassy house that she and Kira lived in. Would she be annoyed? No, Lacus would be possibly, pleased.

The first time she had met Lacus, Cagalli had, unlike the others, not been in awe, for her curiosity far outstripped the thrill at meeting one of the most influential women in the world, regardless how young Lacus Clyne really was.

She now felt a need to be with her best friend and her brother once more to ease the dull throb she felt when she was away from ORB with a little lesser of the surroundings that could force her to work with very few thoughts left for her own self.

Cagalli Yula Atha had once been a reckless girl with a thirst to fight and live fighting. Now, she was fighting against enemies she couldn't see anymore and she knew deep inside that she was losing a battle she had never meant to win from the start.

She promptly flagged the car EA's council had arranged for all the ambassadors, both from ORB and PLANT, and pulled her luggage in herself. She dryly recalled how Mana would usually do the lugging although Cagalli wanted to help, and thought of how surprised Mana would be if she knew Cagalli had learnt how to do her own make-up in the last few years, since she had sent Mana to a peaceful part of ORB that did not include rushing around to make sure Cagalli was safe. She scarcely recognized the thirst to want to break free, but Cagalli would always be safe. She was a caged bird- denied flight but safe still. And that was enough, wasn't it?

Mana had looked after Cagalli since she was a child, and now, it was her due to relax a little.

Necessity was the mother of invention, she decided, although her hair was still a problem to fix. More often than not, it was a young bodyguard in her office who regularly offered to and helped her fix her hair.

She would have to buy the girl a present one day, Cagalli thought, maybe something that suited her girly personality. "Maybe her own hair-dressing salon?" she wondered aloud, causing the driver to swivel wildly at her sudden conversation with apparently, nobody.

He looked at her suspiciously and she shrugged.

As the car she was seated in drove into the embassy zone where the stately house loomed before her, a sleek black vehicle zoomed right past them. She sat upright, her heart somehow less heavy than before, and curiously squinted through the sunlight at the sleek lines and perfect shape of the vehicle and thought that the owner must have had pretty good taste to get a car as lovely as the one being driven.

What Cagalli didn't know was that Athrun Zala was driving the car and at that instant, vaguely wondering why an ORB embassy car was arriving at the PLANT ambassador's residence so early in the morning. What she also wasn't aware of, was that just as she was wiping her eyes and trying not to look like she had cried, so was he.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny, which can be a blessing, because if you did, then you'd have legions of ASUCAGA fans waiting to kill you if you didn't get ASUCAGA sorted out.

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Chapter 9 

When she stepped out of the car, Cagalli saw a ball of pink slam into her line of vision and an equally pink figure jump right at her. Lacus had thrown herself at Cagalli and was hugging her blissfully while the haro she was never seen without bounced everywhere screaming that nobody ever respected a haro these days. She knew almost immediately that Kira had been responsible for its suddenly broadened vocabulary.

The little toy flapped its earpieces indignantly, and she teased it by holding both tight so the toy squealed like a rabbit and stuggled, its rotound structure tossing itself in the air, like a boat in hurried, angry waters.

Lacus was coming forward, dressed in a lovely, flowing sort of muted teal color, and her face was shining and her mouth a primrose of beaming pink. Her cheeks had no color except for the hints of rose and cream, and Cagalli suddenly felt inadequate. She had no reason to be; however, she held her own beauty in a very different way, it nevertheless being on par with Lacus'. But she hadn't realised that- Lacus suspected that she would never.

Cagalli laughed and embraced her dear friend, wanting to reconfirm that Kira had been tampering with the haro, and then she remembered what she had came for. Chewing her lip because she was sure she was going to sound terribly brusque, she paused a little, hanging back. Since when had she been frightened of what she would sound like to others?

Then she thought of Goebbel's frown and the rude finger gesture she had made when he hadn't been there to see it and plunged in bravely.

"Can I stay here for three days? Please?" she pleaded quietly, and brightened immediately when Lacus nodded eagerly and took her hands.

She grabbed her luggage and set off pulling it behind her, feeling the strain in her arms she hadn't expected to feel. Her papers were probably all crumpled in her suitcase, but she'd iron them in secret and on the sly, perhaps later with a little help from Lacus before returning them to the office. For now, that wasn't her main priority.

She swivelled backwards and looked at the roads that led to the house. There was only one two-way road available, and she looked at Lacus, puzzled and meaning to ask if they had had any visitors earlier than her, possible one who drove the black Lamborghini she had just seen zoom by her.

Lacus saw her looking at the road, and hastily led her into the house. Her lips were a little pursed and her steps not quite unhurried.

For Lacus wasn't quite keen to let Cagalli know that Athrun had been there, lest Cagalli make a neat u-turn and disappear back to where she had come from. Now that Cagalli was here, Lacus would sort things out, but that would be tricky if Cagalli was aware what Athrun thought by word of mouth. It was difficult when they were as undecided and tentative as the time when they'd left for Messiah, perhaps even more, because the distance of two years was suddenly looming immense and grey before their eyes.

And every child knew that word of mouth was the worst way to pass information on, and Lacus wasn't a child anyway. Now wasn't the time, she decided, not just yet anyway.

She promprly quickened her pace, and her feet were little pidgeons, fluttering frantically.

But Cagalli saw Lacus looking a little more cheerful and energetic than usual and wondered what it was that bothered her friend, what cause the inexplicable fluster in her blue eyes. Every time Lacus looked incredibly peaceful, there were only two logical explanations. One was obviously attributed to Kira, but the other was when Lacus needed to think but didn't want anyone else to know her thoughts. They both understood this- it was a wall of an inscrutable nature.

Once, Cagalli had seen her leaving Kira's room with the kind of sadness on her face that had gone straight down to her own heart and pierced it like an arrow, drawing a stifled throb of agony to those who would see it.

That had been during the first war when Fllay had died and Kira had realised that it was his fault to a certain degree. Cagalli hadn't wanted to eavesdrop, well, technically, it wasn't really eavesdropping since Lacus was talking only to her haro, but she had heard Lacus quite clearly even through the muffled sobs. She had been shocked to realise Lacus wasn't so clueless about Fllay, Lacus actually knew that Kira saw something in her that reminded her of Fllay, and that had tormented her. But she had never said anything, and Cagalli didn't know how to approach the situation either.

Guiltily dismissing all thoughts from her head, Cagalli strode after Lacus who was quite far ahead of her since she had been dawdling and lost in her thoughts.

As Cagalli entered the terribly gigantic house and the grand dining room, she saw her brother sitting at the table, his egg unpeeled and his toast unbuttered while he intently read through all the papers that were splayed out before him, and found herself entirely losing her senses for the first time in a long while, squealing and launching herself on him from behind, making him yell in surprise and drop his fork below the table. Both of them ducked under the table to retrieve it but ended up colliding into each other and gaining identical bruises on their heads.

"Twin bruises only work for twins," Lacus wisecracked. Cagalli snorted and Kira laughed quite sincerely, and his violet eyes were turned on Cagalli. He knew Lacus had a tendedency for those kind of weird jokes most deemed as warm as the tuna nobody had touched for a month. Of course, not many knew that the sophisticated songstress who was an icon of class and timeless beauty liked that sort of thing.

He patted Cagalli's back warmly, but not without a slight trace of awkwardness. It was always like that, but that clumsiness was charming in its sincerity.

The other PLANT ambassadors who were residing temporarily in the other segments of the large embassy house and were due to return to PLANT after the end of last night's event were all chuckling and pointing to the fiasco at the breakfast table.

Tired from last night's event, they had all woken up after hearing sounds of laughter echoing from the dining hall. Amongst them was a young red-haired girl, the talented hacker and computer analyst directly under the ZAFT ambassador who had failed to answer Cagalli's question the night before.

Meyrin looked longingly at the warmth unfolding before her and laughed too as she realised that things might turn out for the better in the long run. She caught Lacus' eye and smiled at the mediator who had recommended her to the PLANT embassy so she could resettle and find new work after resigning and leaving from Chairman Zala's service.

Cagalli eagerly settled herself down at the table and was helping herself to the food that Kira had neglected for his papers. Haro was cursing at an ambassador who had almost stepped on it, and Cagalli heard the sudden high-pitched sounds it was issuing, recognizing it as dolphin language that she had heard when she was aboard the Archangel when it had entered Earth's orbit and became a ship in the sea.

Then she stopped abruptly, for she had seen a flash of brilliant red hair as the ambassadors, bored of the noise, left the room for more sleep before their flight back to PLANT. Red hair like spilled blood.

She might have known Meyrin anywhere.

Cagalli got up, throwing down her napkin and fork and standing up so quickly her chair overbalanced and fell, its crash muted by the carpet that was laid on the floor. There was a monumental pause of chaos.

Ignoring Kira's stunned "Hey!" she hurried after the ambassadors and trailed the red that appeared in the crowd of colours. She hurtled forward, stretched out a hand and managed to hold onto a pale hand whose owner stopped while the other ambassadors left.

"It's been a long time, Meyrin," she found herself saying to the girl.

"Too long if you ask me," Meyrin responded easily.

And then they were embracing each other fiercely and Cagalli was hugging another person she hadn't seen for nearly two years. She hadn't hugged quite so many people for quite some time, but emotions were running high in a place where old friends and lovers congregated, and she was caught up in everything where the only thing that seemed to be real was the fragments of the past they were holding so stubbornly onto, beating against the tide of the current and the present in the crisp, golden autumn of the year.

And the eggs were steaming and the bacon protesting with their red streaks, that they would be wasted in their succulent heat and tantalizing steams. Yet, they pressed on.

Breakfast lay forgotten as Kira and Lacus approached, both of them holding hands comfortably without a sign of novelty that often peppered fresh couples in their eyes or slight embarrassment.

Kira looked at the young girl who had been naïve but rooted in her trust of her elder sister and the same girl who had saved Athrun and proved herself to be a steadfast friend even in the grey areas war often forced people into. Meyrin had changed her hairstyle a little with a single ponytail instead of the former two that added a little maturity to her youthful face, and was dressed in a simple work shirt and skirt with ZAFT emblems, direct indications as to which ambassador she was working under.

"I didn't know you were staying in this house, Meyrin! How could you not tell me?" Lacus demanded, as Meyrin grinned at her, quietly taking note of the almost invisible wink Lacus threw at her.

And Kira saw the silent exchange and smiled at the girl who had once risked her life and future when she was only sixteen, all to save his best friend. Had she known what her life would have been like?

Meyrin Hawke had been painfully shy in front of Lacus once. Now, they were almost sisters, smiling and holding each other, afraid to let go.

"It was a last minute decision to stay here, because the hotel the subordinates of the ambassadors were placed at was suddenly filled," explained Meyrin, offering a hand to Kira who shook it firmly.

"And of course we didn't see you at yesterday's event," concluded Lacus, nodding knowingly.

"I'm sorry to trouble you and have to put up here, although I'll be leaving in a few hours time with the other ambassadors and their subordinates," Meyrin said simply, proving she had somehow retained her youthfulness and innocence.

Cagalli stared at her with a bit of what seemed a little like dismay. Perhaps Meyrin would leave with Athrun too, perhaps he'd come for her and bring her away.

Then they'd be gone and she wouldn't have to see them and feel the pain stabbing though the numbness she had already grown accustomed to.

She prayed silently, for serenity and composure she had always longed for, the same composure Athrun always seemed to have and the same composure Meyrin had now obtained, perhaps by being with him. She didn't want to weep like she had once, stuffing her fist in her mouth to keep silent while the tears streamed down her cheeks, not ever again, feeling those gasping sobs tear through her. She didn't want to.

Her silent inner conflict might have showed on her face, because she was aware her brow was furrowing into a slight frown.

This was immediately picked up by Lacus who announced that she and Kira had to attend to some urgent business and would be back for lunch with both of them, gliding out of the room with Kira and Cagalli's luggage in tow this time, hence leaving a bemused Meyrin and a suddenly shy Cagalli standing face to face.

Then Meyrin was boldly taking her hand in her own and leading her out to the windows where a breeze was blowing and making the sheer curtains flap in accordance to the wind. Her hair was like strips of a fiery cloth, whipping in the wind, truly beautiful.

And the girl turned to her, smiled very gently and said almost cheerfully, "Did you receive it back?

Cagalli, puzzled, stared at her. She was suddenly aware that her heart was beating very fast, tattoing its rhythm into her chest.

"What do you mean, Meyrin?" she enquired, not quite prepared for the answer that hit her next.

"The ring you passed to me two years ago, I gave it back to Athrun a month after the final battle at Messiah and resigned from his service. Did you not receive it from him?"

"No, I didn't," Cagalli said slowly, "because I haven't seen him for almost two years until last night, and he didn't make any effort to arrange to see me either."

And that was when the hurt started kicking in and her head started throbbing like mad. She fought to keep calm and was enraged. How dare she feel so affected by something that she ought to have been emotionless and neutral over?

Her emotions must have been clearly readable on her face, try as she did to keep it unreadable, and Meyrin was silent for quite some time before she finally spoke.

"I left Chairman Zala because I realised after a month or so, that he would never love me the way he loved you."

She paused for a while and Cagalli was suddenly feeling awkward, but thankfully, Meyrin continued although her voice trembled a little.

"I think, maybe, just maybe, he never even loved me actually." Her voice was smiling. It grew wistful with that tranquility, and Cagalli was afraid to hear the next words.

"On my part, it was that sort of school-girl infatuation that had meant the world to me at that time when he had knocked on my door when I was fifteen, with a rifle in his hands and desperately fighting for a chance to escape. The ring never belonged to me, I only safe-kept it for you during the time you were caught up in your country's immediate problems, but it never belonged to me, the way he never belonged to me too. I hope you understand that."

And Meyrin sighed, looked suddenly like a different person, but then smiled secretively, like a child that was hiding a treasure from the world around her.

Before she could reach out to stop her, Meyrin had already gently folded her fingers securely around the ring that lay in her palm, then looked at Cagalli with a hint of very pure, guiless sadness in her wide eyes before she turned away.

And then she was gone, leaving a confused Cagalli in her wake.

So the ring had been with Athrun.

Lacus was glancing at her. "Are you- alright?"

"Yes," Cagalli said, her eyes not seeing anything. She sat back and took her knife, trying to scoop her eggs up with it, producing a few comical moments before she realised what she had been doing. The buttery omlette lay despondently on her snowy plate, and Lacus looked wistful.

Meyrin, grown-up, independent, no longer in need of someone like Athrun. Was Cagalli to rejoice?

She looked at her hand, it was bare. Once, a ring and glittered on it, its stone red and violent in its beauty, red glints that shifted gracefully and blinded when she had held it above her face and stared at it. And then she had given it away. Did he still have the haumea?

"Meyrin," Cagalli said.

She had spoken aloud, and her voice was quiet and like the murmur of a stream, unsure and slightly lost. Her eyes were a hazy golden, their amber blinded by thoughts and emotions. And her fingers were curled, clenched even, around the perimeter of white table cloth, her lips murmuring silently, muted and somehow strange to the eyes.

Lacus pretended not to hear. Kira merely drank some water.

Nobody spoke for a long time to come.


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny, which can be a blessing, because if you did, then you'd have legions of ASUCAGA fans waiting to kill you if you didn't get ASUCAGA sorted out.

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Chapter 10

"Cagalli, are you listening to me?" her brother asked very suddenly, and she could detect a strange, teasing note in his somber tone.

His hair was tousled, messy in the shining winds of the world as they drove. He had a pale cream, unbuttoned shirt on that was a kite in the wind, it flapped and fluttered, revealing the inner white one that he had on. His eyes were tracing hers in the review mirror.

She promptly colored but controlled her urge to blush an even deeper shade.

"Y-yes, why would you expect otherwise?" she managed a little shakily. Her eyes were lowered and she was shaken out of her reverie.

"Because I asked if you thought the answer was a yes or no, and you said yes, but there wasn't any yes or no to answer me with in the first place," Kira said sharply, raking his eyes over her face in the review mirror. Lacus chuckled and turned back to her, mouthing, "Ignore him."

So she did, but turned her eyes skywards, thinking she could get away with it, but he caught her doing that and said cheekily, "I saw you do that."

His mouth was a little knot of jest.

She looked at her brother and coloured a little, ashamed that she had been caught daydreaming in her own thoughts. Lacus was giggling next to her and she felt a little wave of irritation that she had been made a fool by Kira, but successfully stamped it out. She had to be as subdued and calm as humanely possible at all times, and she wasn't keen to get into a fight with her brother an hour after she had arrived.

She had had a quick breakfast after Meyrin had left, not that she tasted much if anything, of course. When she had been seating there eating, she had suddenly looked up and said loudly, "Meyrin!"

Then all the ambassadors and delegates there had looked up in shock at her and one had even choked on his apple juice and Kira had to trot over there to thump his back and made breakfast a complete fiasco.

The ring-

She had then gone and locked herself in Kira's study and proceeded to finish all her work and the work assigned four days in advance, all perfectly done with no errors. She double-checked. It was the only way to preoccupy her thoughts, but it was a different case when she was sitting in the backseat with nothing to take her thoughts away from everything happening around her.

What if she hadn't given the ring? If so, might Meyrin have still-

"You're not being yourself, Cagalli," her twin was saying coolly, as he made an expert turning with his steering wheel that rendered the car they were in to the nearby beach that Lacus had promised was composed entirely of seashells.

She wasn't? Well now, wasn't that nice of her twin to say something about it.

She briefly wondered what had made her usually impassive brother comment on it, but her unspoken question was answered almost immediately.

"In the past, you would have screeched that it was none of my sodding business that you weren't being yourself, instead of going all silent on me," Kira continued, directing the car into a nice slot that allowed easy access of the beach by foot.

She looked into the rear mirror and wondered if her comebacks had really been that predictable in the past, or were Kira and Athrun so close as best friends that they had telepathy that she and Kira ought to have had as twins, but unfortunately did not have.

And then she realised that she was thinking of him even though she had promised herself last night that she wouldn't, and couldn't help swearing aloud. Then she looked out and saw the ocean and wondered if a place like that would give her peace ever again.

When she had been a child, she often ran to the extensive forests and beaches of ORB to play when her teachers weren't keeping their eyes on her. She would return with her clothes, once soft, now stiff with caked mud and her hands and feet scratched from the blackberry and hawthorn bushes she had hidden in to avoid them from finding her.

She had been an excellent student despite her short-attention span and her lack of interest in most subjects except history, especially war history. The war history had been an obsession- then horror when she'd experienced it, became part of war history.

The irony was immense and startling.

Cagalli had been home schooled for almost the whole of her life, and perhaps that had made her a little awkward in communication and rash in her decisions. It hadn't been easy to do well under the tutelage of her teachers who were the best, but she had managed it just to prove that she had a bright mind. In fact, she would have graduated at the top if there had been a class at all. Being home schooled automatically made you the top no matter how badly one did anyway.

Kira was opening the door for her and Lacus who had sat next to him was already at the car boot taking out the food they had brought to have a picnic, and he was offering a hand to her and saying with an air of satisfaction she found herself smiling fondly at, "I knew Cagalli Yula Atha was still my sister."

Try as she might, she could not find a comeback to shoot at him, and moved to the back to help Lacus carry out everything that was packed in three baskets. They each took one and set off to the lovely beach where Cagalli had to admit that Lacus was quite right when she had declared the whole beach was just a treasure trove of seashells. It was, and for a minute Cagalli wanted to laugh and play and frolic like she had on some little beach she had once called her own.

She stooped down, enjoying the salty spray of the air and the clean slices of the wind, and she untucked her shirt and it flapped back, revealing her waist as she picked one, delicately- shaped and a faint sunset color. She held it to her ear in a trance-like state, and heard the songs of another world and the promises they held in it.

While Kira set up the cosy looking red-and-white checked table cloth he had sniped from somewhere to make a picnic mat, she gazed around, trying to imprint the beauty of the beach as a memory. The shells were in all shorts of shapes and sizes, sorted according to size by the distance from the sea, since the waves tended to throw heavier, larger shells further up the coast and had only enough energy to take back the less bulky, coarser ones, hence the smaller shells nearer to the open sea. She strolled here and there, imagining that the boundaries of the shell-sorting were marked only by the sea and not the footsteps she'd left on it.

The sand was sparse in comparison- she smiled and let it sift through her fingers, golden and warm at the top, cool and wet below.

Lacus was picking up a few and examining them with great interest, commenting that they would be lovely if they were strung into a necklace. Cagalli glanced over and had to agree, because the shells were so lovely that even she who tried to avoid fussy things like jewellery would have to admit a shell necklace would be nice to wear. She secretly liked that sort of thing, but Cagalli was like glass. Hard yet fragile, beautiful in its vulnerability and aching stubbornness, made bold with its defiance to comply. Her country was aware of her tough-lady persona, but Kisaka, he was different.

Since she had been a child, she had been stubborn and independent, climbing gates to escape from the Manor, following her father to work in secret, because she was afraid people would realise that she was lonely half the time, but then she cried easily and blushed without much of any effort directed to it.

It was then that she spotted a well, strangely placed in the middle of a beach, although it was mostly shaded by cool palm trees that had managed to grow in the sandy soil the shells had not covered. Startled by the discovery, she yelled to Lacus that there was a well, and both of them ran over like children who had found Christmas presents early, drawn in by their curiosity.

They placed their hands on the mossy stone well and peered into the deep darkness, enjoying the queer sounds the water below made when it gurgled. There was an odd, misplaced, croak that made both of them cry out, "frogs!" at the same time before bursting into laughter. Cagalli grabbed Lacus' hands and hurried back to Kira who had set up everything already and was lying on his back with his hands cushioning his head, looking like a cat on a rooftop enjoying the breeze.

"There's a well and frogs, Kira! Imagine that!" Lacus cried, expecting Kira to spring up and rush over to see the new discovery too.

Instead, he yawned and stretched himself in a manner reminiscent of a feline, and muttered that the food was getting cold. He'd picked a few coconuts and promised to have them opened for their sweet, tender juice, but the rocks were far too heavy for him to lift and dash against the husks.

So they sat down and ate and talked of happy things and Cagalli wanted the moment to last forever where she wasn't obliged to speak in a key higher according to what was advised, and to smile ad laugh without feeling self-conscious an thousands of cameras clicking and flashing in her direction.

She started braiding Lacus' silky, long hair almost lazily, since the wind was blowing at her hair and swishing it temptingly in front of her nose. Lacus giggled and leaned back to allow her better excess and then when Cagalli had finished with it; she skipped behind her and played with Cagalli's hair in exchange.

"My hair's not long, it's not good to play with," Cagalli began hesitantly, but Lacus just grinned more and skillfully tucked loose strands behind her ears and arranged it with a deft pawing motion, somehow making it tame for once. She caught a flash of molten gold as Lacus moved near her, and she realised that it was Lacus' signature hairpin. It was molten gold in the sun, luxurious and reflective. She saw her eyes in it.

"Where'd you get your pin from, and why are you always wearing it?" she asked curiously.

"It was my mother's, she left it for me even though I never saw what she looked like before since she died giving birth to me," Lacus said simply, her hands still moving across Cagalli's hair.

Nearby, Kira had paused shuffling the food everywhere, and Cagalli blushed furiously and muttered, "Sorry. I didn't mean to ask such-"

But Lacus giggled and said sweetly, "Cagalli and Kira look very much like your mother, and perhaps I look like my mother too, since I don't look much like my father, although he told me that she had very dark hair since she came from the Scandinavian gypsy line or something like that. Obviously though, her favourite colour was pink."

Eager to change the topic and partly because she was surprised at what Lacus had said, Cagalli butted in and said, "What part of our mothers looks like us?"

"Everything," Kira said very quietly.

"Yes," cut in Lacus, "her eyes, her face and the most obvious thing is-,"

"Is?" Cagalli asked inquisitively.

"Her smile," Lacus replied softly, then she looked at them and smiled so radiantly that Cagalli wondered why Kira could have ever seen anyone like Fllay when Lacus Clyne had been around.

One of these days, Cagalli promised herself, she would have to speak to Kira. Of course she had met Fllay Alster herself, that girl had been obviously the golden girl of the pack, long silky red hair, pale, flawless skin with no freckles like Cagalli's on her arms, and very sharp features with sparkling eyes.

Cagalli had actually caught her telling Mirallia Haww what a country bumpkin she thought 'the Cagalli girl' was, but lord, it had been fun to see the look on her face when Cagalli had been brought back to Orb in her regalia.

She hadn't enjoyed the attention very much, walking around the ship like that, her skirt so long it touched her ankles as dozens of gleaming bangles chimed from her arms and her feet, but seeing the look like somebody had punched her on Fllay's fair face had made her feel a little less awkward.

But she had also been a royal pain in the neck in Cagalli's opinion and she had actually been jealous of Cagalli when Cagalli and Kira had first met. Of course nobody had known that they were twins back then, and in that kind of place, nobody could say anything without considering the repercussions and consequences first.

In fact, no place she had been to for the last few years of her life had been a place where she was truly free.

In a place like this where she could speak freely with those who she wanted to be with for the rest of her life, Cagalli was the happiest, Kira realised, and maybe that was the key.

Clearing his throat, he posed a riddle to them.

If a frog were to jump into a well about forty meters deep like the one they had seen, and it was estimated that if it were to climb up two meters everyday but slide down by one due to its weariness from climbing each day, how many days would it take for a frog to get out of the well?

Lacus chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip while Cagalli sighed and said those Mathematical riddles were beyond her, and suddenly, Kira heard the voice he had been waiting for ever since he had came and purposely sprawled himself there in case his best friend arrived suddenly.

"Thirty-nine days, is that correct Kira?"

Her heart jumped to her throat, and she nearly croaked like the frog in the riddle. Her lips flew apart in silent shock and distress.

They all turned around to face Athrun who had his face partially shielded by the sunglasses he had once worn as Alex Dino. He stood, graceful and relaxed, on one foot, and there was a slight carelessness in his body that was irritatingly attractive to her eyes.

And Kira watched his sister's face pale and her eyes that had warmed just a little become dull again. He tried to ignore the sinking feeling of failure as he realised the dullness was not from overworking but from the effort to make her face unreadable as she had been taught to do as a politician and leader.

He knew that his sister would have probably beaten a few card smarts at poker already to be as well-trained as she now was. His mouth pursed a little.

But then, Kira stood up instantly, clapping his friend on the back and bidding him to sit down with them to join them for what remained of their lunch.

Lacus, beaming graciously, brought out a portion that had been wrapped separately almost as if it had been there just in case another person were to join them, and Cagalli's eyes were suddenly suspicious.

"Why is your answer thirty-nine days, Athrun?" Lacus asked cheerfully.

She had stood as well, and was proffering an empty place for Athrun to sit on. He accepted courteously and smiled at her, and his smile was a slightly sly one.

"What would your answer be then, Lacus?" he asked genially in return while slipping off his sunglasses that revealed his green eyes.

But he was looking at Cagalli. Her eyes were insistently drawn to the little rock that sat on the corner of the blanket, the only thing that weighed its corner down. She was beautiful today, a sort of windswept comeliness had entered her face and her lips were ripe with full, rich promise and the inexperience he had relished when he had lost his resolve and kissed her before he'd left for the Plants. The difference now, was that she was no longer his.

"If the frog were to climb two meters but slide down one each day, and the well was forty meters deep, wouldn't that be forty days to climb forty meters with one meter a day?" she asked curiously.

Athrun laughed, enjoying the feeling of the breeze in his hair and secretly thanking the gods that he had checked his phone for mails after leaving the estate after breakfast to return for three solid hours of meetings with the PLANT delegates and representatives. Kira had sent him a message that Cagalli would be with them for lunch, and he apologized that he could not speak to Athrun because Cagalli would notice if he made a call out in the open, and getting away was unlikely since she was clinging on to him quite tightly.

Kira had even tried dropping his fork under the table while actually dropping it into his lap so he could fool Cagalli into searching under the table while he quickly sent the message, but it had gone wrong somehow and Kira had sent him the message in the bathroom instead. And Athrun had thought he was desperate enough. Somehow, Kira was more desperate than him.

"Well?" prompted Lacus. There was a sparkling impatience in her today, and Cagalli was afraid to look at her, afraid to look at anyone for that matter.

She could sense his eyes on her.

"Basically, if the frog were, as you said, to climb a net calculation of one meter per day, then on the first day it started climbing, it would have reached one meter above ground level. At the end of the second day it started climbing, it would have reached two meters above the ground." Athrun said calmly.

"Go on," Lacus prompted eagerly. Her face was inquisitive and pretty with youth, disconcerting for someone wise than her years.

"This would have went on so on and so forth, until it reached the thirty-eighth meter above ground on the thirty-eighth day," he paused, looking back at Kira who was nodding in approval and Lacus who was counting her fingers in an effort to keep up. Cagalli, in spite of herself, was staring, curious to hear his logic and heartened by her interest, he went on.

"And on the thirty-ninth day, the frog would climb his usual two meters, and without a chance to slide down, he would have already reached the top and escaped from the well, leaving one day excess in your calculation of forty days, Lacus," Athrun concluded simply.

Lacus clapped her hands together, her blue eyes like stars and cried, "How clever!" with the innocence of a child that made it obvious why the Coordinators had worshipped her.

Kira was beaming and saying, "You figured that one out very well."

Athrun gazed at Cagalli from the corner of her eye, and Lacus nudged the silent girl who started, lost in her thoughts and heard Kira clear his throat rather expectantly.

Realising she had to say something too, she stammered, "T-that's right!"

As soon as the words had left her lips, she felt herself close to blushing furiously and had to turn away to face the sea and put an emotionless mask to stop herself from looking like a damned fool in front of the others, and then turned back a little more shyly than she would have preferred to do. Cagalli excelled at History and Geography and was terrible and that sort of thing like woodwork, but Mathematics had never really been her strong suit anyway, she had nearly died when she had studied integration and limits and that sort of thing. But she liked Algebra too, if she had a stick, she could have made some equation and used X to represent the number of days the frog would take to climb out with the various conditions brought in too.

Then she decided there and then that she would go home and work it out just to see if he was really correct. Not that she'd proudly march up to him and tell Athrun Zala that his Algebra was a failing subject anyway; she'd probably end up in a rut or something.

Kira sighed and stretched again, thinking that they had a long way to go. Then he sprung to his feet, light and agile, and asked whether anyone was keen for a race along the coast where there were fewer shells and more sand to run on.

Athrun, keen for a break from the exhausting work he had just left completed in his temporary office, readily agreed to race him, and Cagalli, taking them and herself by surprise, offered to race too. Lacus said she would try since Cagalli was wearing a work skirt and still racing, so she had no excuse not to try anyway, although she would probably be last.

So they lined up in semi-kneeling positions, with Athrun next to Kira who crouched next to Cagalli and then Lacus at the other end of the queer line they formed. Lacus pointed at the headland that they could see in the distance as the endpoint, and then on the count of four in honour of them, they shot off onto the sand.

Lacus was soon steadily falling behind although she tried vigilantly to keep up with the other three, but Cagalli embraced the wind rushing at her as she ran as fast as she could, unable to stop laughing as she felt herself freed from everything behind her.

Her brother was now at a leisurely jog rather than his sprint, all to make the distance between them and Lacus less apparent, but he finally gave up and turned behind to face the panting Lacus before catching her in his arms and kissing her on the cheek, laughing at her indignant expression and yelling at the other two retreating figures that they'd have to race fair and square without him and Lacus.

Cagalli heard him and laughed too, sincerely thinking that Lacus and Kira deserved each other more than anyone else, and continued running on the sand. She had been used to it when she trained as a resistance fighter in the desert, although her build was a disadvantage when it came to the sandstorms violent gusts and blinding shifting sands that made her eyes teary and sore for days if she did not wear a cloak or goggles.

If all was clear though, her speed on the sand was nearly unsurpassed. Now there were no desert storms to slow her down, but she was wearing a skirt that reached her knees and there was a strong prevailing coastal wind blowing directly at her. Her speed would take a hit; there was no doubt about it. She hadn't felt too bothered about it though, she had only ran as fast as her legs could carry her, and she was grateful that she had her comfortable loafers on rather than the office high heels she had worn earlier that morning.

She thought of her friends she had left behind at the desert and Ahmed who had died in before her very eyes, and wanted to cry out in anguish even though she knew life there was now peaceful.

Now that her brother was out of the race, it would be easier to win since she was now in the lead. Kira was fast and his slight build made it unfair for her from the start, but he wasn't here now. She sprinted forward, but spotted something zooming from behind her and realised that the blur of dark grey suit that Athrun had been wearing meant that he had overtaken her after conserving his energy for half the race. He was in for the kill, she was sure, but she'd never give up when she had the advantage of being practiced with running on sand.

And so she laughed a little for no reason and raced behind him, marking her eyes on the little cove that was becoming bigger and bigger as they neared it. As they approached it, she pushed herself forward and leapt forward, effectively cutting her competitor short by touching the cove a mere split-second after him, where she bent her upper body down and panted, tiny beads of perspiration dripping down both their foreheads. He had lost, but only by a mere second; still he accepted it and took her hand as was a customary acceptance of defeat and goodwill.

But as their hands came into contact, she lifted her amber eyes towards his, and he was stunned to see they were no longer dull and guarded but sparkling and revitalised with a fire he had dreamt of seeing for nearly the last two years.

In a daze, he was pulling her towards him in a similar way as the last night, but this time she was pushing him away violently, so violently that she lost her balance on the soft sand and ended up falling backwards in a stumbling manner while he caught her flailing arms to help her regain her balance but overbalanced too and effectively collapsed on her and crushed her beneath his weight, although his arms reached out and propped him just in time so their lips wouldn't touch.

She was staring up at him in shock and she tried to say something but a weird gurgle came out of her mouth and made her feel like digging a grave and never coming out of it.

He was aware that both their faces were flaming red, and he rolled off with as much dignity as he possibly could muster after squashing the ORB Chairman, whereby they sat up, stiffened and brushed the sand off while sitting outside the little cave.

Cagalli couldn't help but stare at him, astonished that he had tried to embrace her again for no sodding reason whatsoever, and then admonished herself silently for losing control too.

"Why did you do that?" she questioned, more calmly than she actually felt.

He looked over at her and thought of the ring he had around his neck and how he had dreamt of her putting it back on her finger and allowing him to put his arms around her her as often as he liked, then said carefully, "Because I wanted to."

She looked away from him to glance at the calm sea and ran her fingers through her hair.

Choosing her words slowly and cautiously, she began very hesitantly knowing that he looked at her with unfaltering eyes, "Meyrin said she gave you the ring back when I met her just now, I suppose you have it?"

He stared at her, cursing fate for being such good friends with irony for the thousandth time that year, and nodded.

"She gave it back to me nearly two years ago after a month when I came to office and back to ZAFT." he said, wishing he could see her expression better since most of her face was directed at the sea.

"I see." was all she said, her hands suddenly in her skirt's pockets.

And then he couldn't bear the awkwardness they had between them when they had once been so open and honest with each other even when it had been in the chaotic times of war, and he was saying sharply to her, "Didn't you wonder why I didn't come back to give the ring to you again after that?"

She tuned jerkily to face him and he saw that she was emotionless, replying, "No, there's no need to explain when it's all quite obvious. I may have been naive then, but I'm not like that anymore. I don't need to hear it."

Her hands were still in her pockets, and he reached forward to yank them out. And then he saw that her hands were clenched in balls and were trembling quite visibly even though her face was calm.

"Yes, you do," he insisted. If she was stubborn like a mule with him, well, he'd show her he wasn't about to be a pansy either.

"I don't want to," she said very coldly, and then she put her trembling hands in her pockets again and looked away, a little frown on her lips.

"Why do you have to be like that around me?" he asked sharply, recalling how happy she had looked with Lacus and Kira until he had arrived.

She glared at some offending rocks at her feet although she wanted to glare at him, wondering where the girl who would speak her mind at any time of the day had gone, feeling lost and tired suddenly.

"Because that's the only way I can see you without feeling pain from recalling the past," she said quietly with no emotion in either her face or her voice.

He was furious at her lack of emotion, even at her lack of anger or any bitter feelings she might have had towards him, and that she wanted to forget everything and him now, and it riled him up so badly his hands actually twitched on their own accord. They hadn't done that for a long time, only when he had first killed a man when some Earth Alliance terrorists had disguised themselves as ZAFT redcoats and infiltrated the grounds with guns.

He had been fourteen at that time and was sleeping soundly, tired from a day's hard training, but he had heard someone enter his room and had seen a redcoat soldier that obviously didn't belong there. If the infiltrator had been dressed in the normal green ZAFT uniform, he might have been fooled for a while, but there were so few redcoats that it was nearly impossible that the man he could not recognise was one of them. Their egos had done them in. The man had instantly put the trigger at his temple, but he had grabbed a fruit knife from his bed and plunged it into the enemy's eye the way he usually did in the simulation centers, and then he felt the warm spray of blood on his own cheek as the screaming began and had thought numbly that the simulation centers didn't have that in the programs the soldiers practiced with.

His hands had twitched for days after that, just like how they were twitching as he stared at her now.

"You shouldn't have to forget everything we had in the past!" he cried, grabbing her and shaking her as if to make her wake up and realise what awful words she had just said to him.

"And why not?" she said calmly as she tried to free herself and try not to punch him in his gut just for the heck of it all.

He let her free herself and drew in a shuddering breath, and then surprised her when he said determinedly, "Punch me."

"What?" she said in absolute confusion. He gazed at her with unreadable eyes and prepared himself to get injured, but he would memorize the way she looked at him now with large, innocent amber eyes and her lips parted in slight irritation and confusion.

"I said punch me, punch me Cagalli!" he insisted, reaching forward and pushing up her hands in a boxing stance.

She looked at him, bewildered, wondering if he had lost his mind from all the work he had been doing, and then saw that he had already helped arrange her hands in the stance she had taken when she was about to go bonkers and punch someone as hard as she could.

Amagi had told her not to go around beating anyone up, and she had tried to listen, but she failed sometimes, since she had been born with a fiery temper and a passionate rage in her. Perhaps Via Hibiki had given that to her, but perhaps she hadn't.She never knew where it came from. Then Goebbels had ordered her not to make a fool of herself and she hadn't. But now, the person she thought she had never wanted to see again wanted her to make a fool out of him.

She heard the sound of a string grow taut, and then snap in her ears. With a growl of rage, she threw her fists forward and felt them connect with his palm which he had expertly sued to block to assault. She threw her other fist forward quickly, using the jabbing steps that she had learnt from her bodyguards with a lethal precision that surprised her because she hadn't done any boxing after beating up Yuna almost two years ago. "He deserved it anyway", she thought fiercely.

She was jabbing faster and harder than any time she had done before, and he finally could not block the final punch she threw that connected with his stomach, and he made an 'oof' sound and doubled up in pain.

Cagalli saw that she had hurt him and her hands flew up to her mouth and she stammered, " I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you like tha.." and then he was looking up and her and grinning and grimacing at the same time, managing to say confidently through his evident pain, "I knew you still had it in you."

He had seen it again, the flashes of passionate fury and fire in her eyes as she had attacked him, and he knew he was making progress. He wanted to whoop and cheer and maybe make her laugh and hold him in her arms, but he was still cringing from the pain. Boy, she could punch.

"Why did you want me to punch you?" she yelled in a rage, not quite understanding the strange twist of events, and then she was stunned that she had even yelled at all, and she was puzzled why it had felt so correct to yell and speak with as much self-assuredness as she did now.

"Because that was a sure-fire way to see you like what you were in the past again," he said simply, placing a hand near his abdomen where it was still throbbing sullenly like a sulky child that had his sweets taken away and thrown out of the window.

And then it dawned on her that he had tricked her out of her cave and she was simply furious that she had lost it so easily with him when her brother and Lacus were still trying hard to obtain what Athrun had managed to obtain out of her. She wanted to shove him so hard he flew into next Wednesday, but she was wary now, she suspected that she knew what he was after. Well, she wouldn't give it then.

But her emotions were all pouring out now, she tried to gather them up and lock it up deep somewhere but now he had opened Pandora's Box. She was afraid there and then that she'd never find the key to lock it up again. And she was standing there, her profile framed by the coast and her hair taken by the wind and freely howling like she had never done before with tears streaming down her face, crying and feeling ashamed that she was being so emotional and for even admitting that she was tired from the obligations she had wanted to fulfill for ORB with all her heart.

It had occurred to her once that she was overdoing things, but she had done it anyway. That was the only way she could live her life without pining away like some dog that had been abandoned or something stupid like that.

Then he had closed the distance between them and was trying to hug her and comfort her again, but she was pushing him away and running back from where she had come from and shouting incoherently for him not to come. She stumbled a little, blinded by her tears, cursing her lack of control ever since she had arrived and seen him again, then she fell down and scarcely felt anything, because she was realising the logic of the frog trapped in the forty-meter well.

Lacus' answer had been proven wrong by Athrun by simple calculations, but Athrun's answer was also wrong by mere logic and the cold, hard facts too.

Time or energy to climb one meter a day again and again wasn't quite the issue as it had been with the frog riddle, because a frog that fell into a forty-meter deep well just did not look up and see the sky beyond the looming walls and get up to climb again.

She was sure she was the frog.

Nobody spoke for a long time to come.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Kira was so mad, he thought he was about to go into berserk mode. Cagalli had rushed back to him and Lacus, howling and crying like a child as they tried in vain to get her to calm down and tell them what had happened, but she had refused to reveal anything and had pleaded for them to bring her home.

He had been enraged at himself, because when he had cried alone on the deck of Archangel and howled like a child, she had grabbed him and hugged him and told him it would be alright in the end. But now, he couldn't do the same for her.

She pleaded and pleaded for them to bring her home after she regained some control and it tore his heart into shreds to see her in such a weak, pathetic sate. He exchanged glances with a worried-looking Lacus and looked at her crying for them to bring her home.

So they had done just that after Athrun, his face in obvious distress, had joined them shortly by running after the retreating Cagalli. Kira had quietly signalled to him that he should go first, and he had complied without saying a word and driven off although the pain on his face was more than obvious by then.

They had brought her back to the house and she had flopped down onto Lacus' bed and cried so much that she would have wet the pillowcase and the pillow on the either side by now, he thought sullenly. And the worst thing was that he still didn't know what was going on. Lacus was speaking to her in soothing tones inside now, and he was trying to eavesdrop but Haro was rolling idly outside the door, ready to scream electronic curses if the two girls inside were disturbed by intruders.

He regretted the security function he had put into Haro as a prank, and vowed never to do stupid things like that in the future. He suddenly thought of calling up his best friend who he new had extended his stay here for three days with apparently the same write-in reason as Cagalli's. Not that was hard to arrange, what with the ORB, PLANT and EA's relations coming on so nicely, the EA was more than happy to arrange for their stays here.

So he went to his bedroom, locked the door and arranged for the blue haro he had been tampering with in his room to stand guard outside his door and get ready to scream bloody murder if anyone tried to come in.

He picked up his cell, and then speed-dialled Athrun's personal phone. After a few rings, Athrun answered, and Kira could hear the shakiness in his voice as his friend proceeded to ask who it was calling.

"It's me," he said calmly, "care to share what went on back there?"

And then he thought he could have been a successful poet if he had taken up creative writing instead of Science and Engineering when he was nine, but kicked away the random thoughts as he heard a sigh at the other end of the line as his friend told him everything.

Back in her room, Lacus was trying to make sense of the sobs and hiccups that were Cagalli trying to tell her what had happened. So far, she could gather that Cagalli had won the race, but that was about it. She wasn't a fool though.

She pressed Cagalli's head onto her lap, the way she had once did to Kira when he had cried and was pleased to see that it made Cagalli quieten down and comforted a little. Lacus never knew how she had came to the conclusion that heads on laps stemmed crying, that was always the first thing she did when she was in distress when she saw someone she cared about in tears. She knew she was selfish, the action wasn't so much to comfort them as much as she did it so she wouldn't be hurt by the pain on their faces once they buried their faces in her lap.

Lacus could probably guess what had happened as Cagalli started punching in the air as she tried to tell her about Athrun making her punch him, and Lacus could similarly guess why he had pushed her do that. She stroked her friend's hair gently and forced her to sit up properly and wiped her tear away, even though fresh ones were threatening to blossom again. It killed her to be so pushy with Cagalli who was in distress, but she knew it was now or never.

"Do you still have feelings for him?" she shot at her, willing herself to sound stern and not procrastinate over the issues and the truth.

Cagalli stared at her friend and bit her lower lip, hanging her head and feeling miserable.

"Well?" Lacus prompted.

"I-I think so, but," faltered Cagalli, trying not to hiccup from crying so much in a just two days.

"But what?" Lacus asked gently as she held Cagalli's hands in hers.

"But it'd have been wrong to ask for more than what I have now because ORB is my main priority, and he shouldn't be," explained Cagalli, passing to hiccup and sniffle a little.

Lacus looked carefully at her friend and then suddenly laughed peal after peal of laughter until she was crying almost as hard as Cagalli.

"You two have been more caught up in the past than what we expected initially," she managed to say to a confused Cagalli.

"Day in, day out, both of you tried to forget each other not because you lost any feelings for each other during and after the second war, but because you were forced to work with problems in your own countries that demanded your immediate attention," explained Lacus.

"Now that that's more or less over, why do you still have to work like cows and neglect yourselves and your hearts by believing that what was in the past is the present and the certain future?" she concluded with a smile.

Cagalli stared at her with wide eyes and then shook her head violently, stammering, "N-not only that, he didn't see a need to return me the ring after the war was over, because he probably-"

"Because he was living in the past too," Lacus interrupted, "and then Kira and I knew both of you were still trapped in the past even until yesterday, and I think Meyrin saw that today too. She was probably smarter than I was at that time, because she realised Athrun would eventually wake up one day and then decide and carry out what he needed to do, and that was why she wanted to be the catalyst by returning him the ring almost as soon as the war was over and there was hope everywhere to be seen. She knew the truth too, Meyrin did."

Lacus paused and looked at Cagalli who was staring in wonder at her, not really seeing but still seeing everything.

"If that's true, then it'd be too late," she whispered painfully, "because I've had to change so much I can probably never go back to who I was when I was with him."

She thought of the way she had found out a young clerk stealing a few dollars after Goebbels had hauled him to her and how he had instructed her to fire him immediately. She had wanted to ask why he did that and give him another chance, the terror on his face and the pleading look in his eyes had made her want to hug and comfort him like a child more than take away his job,but she had done the deed straight away. She had become a cold-blooded person and she knew it even while she lost a little of the life she had in her, ironically, through every day she lived her life.

She hung her head morosely and wondered why she had even agreed to become who she was today when her father had remained so true to himself even when ORB's fate rested on his shoulders. At that time during the war, she had been desperate to save ORB, and she had changed which had probably been the best decision at that time, but she was so far lost that it was scarcely a wonder if she could return to herself ever again. Cagalli let out a cry sob and pushed her face into her hands, ready to say she wanted to surrender.

But warm arms were enclosing her into a tight embrace and Lacus was whispering that she hadn't changed, she was still Cagalli, she had proven that today, and then Cagalli was returning the embrace until they nearly choked in their joy and the realisation that everything was gong to work out eventually.

And that night when she slept, tucked into bed in snug warm covers that Lacus had shared with her, Cagalli dreamt of a million frogs jumping and leaping out of deep wells like chips of jade being scattered around the world.

But at Cagalli's office the next morning, Athrun had not foreseen the problems that would erupt upon his arrival as he walked into the office that admitted him since he called in for official business as the head of ETERNITY to see ORB's leader.

He had strode into the building, as free as you pleased, with few people to disturb him and ask his what his business was even though her office was a beehive of activity. He knew that even though the embassy house she had been placed at by the EA had travellators like an official building, (technically it was though), and she would have her private quarters somewhere around her office. That was what had been arranged for him in his won temporary residence, and he couldn't think of a logical explanation why hers would be any different.

He paused at a handsome door with a gold plague that had the ORB symbol printed on a fine card that was slipped onto the plague, superbly sure that it was her office. He looked around for similar doors and found none, and then knocked once or twice, sure that she would be inside. He heard a scuffling sound and a male voice asking him to come in, and he froze for a few seconds wondering why it wasn't her voice that he heard. And then he put his hand on the door handle and made his way in, but he stopped in his tracks as he saw her secretary staring at him form the side of the desk where he was arranging papers that seemed to be in a mess.

Staring at Cagalli's secretary, he was taken aback to meet eyes almost similar to his own, quite green and a bit almond-shaped like a cat's. Then he felt an intense wave of jealously when he thought that she had found a replacement for him.But maybe that was just him and his stupid self. Cagalli probably hadn't even noticed her secretary's eyes that were almost like his own. Or maybe he was fooling himself there too.

Clearing his throat a bit self-consciously, he spoke, silently sizing up the man as he had been trained to do ages ago as a soldier, let alone an elite one at that. The more disconcerting thing other than realising that the man was in Cagalli's office while there was no trace of her was the fact that the secretary, Benjamin Goebbels, his name card read, was sizing him up too.

"Where is Chairman Atha?" he enquired, trying hard not to flinch as the secretary stared back unblinkingly at him.

"Until proper identification is presented, no further official information on the whereabouts of the President Atha will be freely given," the secretary recited like a robot. Well, at least he could see where, or rather, who, Cagalli was learning it from.

Athrun fixed his eyes on the man obstinately, with distaste he didn't bother hiding, and they glared at each other for a few more seconds before he trusted himself to speak properly.

"I'm the Chairman of PLANT's ETERNITY council, Athrun Zala, and I'm here on official business to see your chairman regarding the integration of Naturals in a sector yet to be finalised in PLANT itself."

He flipped open an identification card and smirked inwardly while watching the secretary ogle at him behind his glasses before straightening up and saying stiffly, "The chairman isn't here."

Now was his turn to ogle, and it hit him suddenly that she might have arranged to be with Kira and Lacus during her stay here, that is if she was able to wrangle her way out of it for a while. Looking at her secretary, he imagined that it had been an uphill task if she had managed it at all.

He cursed silently while maintaining a poker straight face, wondering why the heck Kira hadn't mentioned anything of that sort even at the beach.

And then, as if to interrupt his thoughts, a cell rang somewhere and he secretary was bounding over to answer it. Athrun idly listened to the one-sided conversation, waiting for the secretary to return his attention back to him so he could inform the secretary to tell Cagalli that he had been here.

The words were coming fast and furious, probably something urgent that could not wait. He listened more carefully as he heard muffled sounds, "Get her into a dress for that one, if she has a chance she'll jump into a pantsuit and it'll be field day for the reporte..", and phrases that caught almost all of his attention at once.

The secretary he was starting to dislike intensely was frowning and telling the person on the other line, perhaps another minder of Cagalli's that she was going to take a break for three days and he wanted an entire rescheduling of her work even if her personal time was going to have to be replaced by working hours. The conversation was over in less than a minute but it was enough to make Athrun on the brink of a rage.

How dare they treat her like a doll and tell her what to do just for what they thought was the best? It was bad enough that she had to be cooped in all day working, but surely this was going overboard now.

He glared at the secretary with narrowed eyes and said sharply, "Don't you think that she'd hate that?"

The secretary was staring at him directly with eyes that mirrored his own as he replied quite emotionlessly although his jaw had tightened, "the chairman's business really isn't for you to decided, sir.

Athrun felt a slow simmering rage boil up which was a welcome change from his usual taciturn ways, and he said authoritatively, "That's Chairman Zala to you."

He continued, taking full advantage over the secretary's momentary loss of comebacks, and said coolly, more coolly than he really felt, "It's not your business to make her personal life take second priority over her work, is it? If it's work, that's just your job to aid her ad assist her, but this isn't. Why should she be forced to clock in hours of work that moves into her personal life when she's already being worked to the bone? In either case, the work is being done in her own personal time even as we speak, but you force her more because she doesn't advertise her efforts on her own behalf."

The hateful secretary snapped back, "Personal time or not, Chairman Zala, if she isn't forced like the other politicians out there who need their own secretaries and minders to keep them in check, she'd be at a loss without m.."

He was promptly cut off by a single punch from Athrun that sent his glasses flying askew as he gasped in shock more than pain.

Athrun stood stolidly and hissed even as the secretary winced, "You don't know what you're saying. She doesn't need anyone like you to force her to working herself long after the rest of her is dead for ORB. Her father did the same, and she's doing that, but you merely stifle her. You think all that you do is for her sake and you think that's your job, but I don't see how interfering with the chairman as a person and taking the best out of her makes any sense. Use the stuff you might have in between your ears, that is if you have a brain at all."

He left the man wincing there and strode out of the office with his coat swishing behind him, taking care not to slam the door even if he felt like it. The absurdity of the whole situation was beginning to kick in, and as he made his way out of the building with slight whispers here and there with people wondering what the important Chairman of PLANT's ETERNITY was doing there, he flipped off his cloak into the backseat and drove off.

He knew what had made her change so much other than the need for immediate attention to ORB two years ago.

He knew it had been the Seiran who had been a catalyst even as she came of age and struggled to find herself in the midst of war, and the way she had floundered with the Seiran family controlling ORB and using her and her need to be loyal to ORB and her father's ideals as a figure head, and he knew he hadn't been able to find the courage to be Athrun Zala and not Alex Dino when he had been there with her, and he hadn't found the need to step up and say something in her defence, and how there hadn't made a single move on his part to stop her from losing herself after the war and was hit by a wave of regret so painful it made him hit the wheel in an instantaneous movement of fury.

He remembered how she had already started losing some of the wildness and fire when they left for Messiah two years ago. She had come on board in the ORB uniform and he had watched her with a dull throbbing somewhere he couldn't quite place after he had to sortie and defeat the mislead Shinn.

He remembered the way she had looked on at everyone with a dull, muted longing in her eyes as she moved down the line towards him. His chest had ached so badly then, and he was certain it wasn't caused by the wounds he sustained in the battles. He had wanted to put her arms around him in a different way from those she had mere seconds ago, and feel her warmth and fire and detect her scent.

She had hesitated and not quite looked at him in the face, although she hugged Lacus and Kira fiercely, but when she had gotten to him, she simply titled her head up and looked at him, and the longing had, for a second, became a raging fire before it died into a dull look of recognition.

He had embraced her and broken the moment of awkwardness, and felt her settling into his arms and hugging him back, but he hadn't noticed her wearing his ring and he hadn't bothered with anything. But he felt her pressing into him as he did into her and had to let her break the embrace and remove herself from him, although he wanted to scream and cry and made her stay with him. He recognised her scent, the way she fitted so perfectly into his arms as they hugged and it had been agony to feel her rip herself away and watch as she marched off the deck where he knew she would stand and salute as the Archangel took them away.

Kira had asked him if it was alright and he had smiled a little and said that it was for now, but 'now' had already been two years ago and he had one chance and only one now. If he lost it, he would lose Cagalli and Cagalli would then lose herself.

He was making his way to Kira's residence now, and not even ten idiotic Goebbels would stop him from doing what he had to do.


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Seed,Gundam Seed Destiny, yadah yadah. But no problem, there's always Fanfiction so I can play with the characters. R&R&R please, and the last R stands for recommend. I'm thick-skinned that's for sure,but please recommend Truth to every ASUCAGA supporter. Spread the gospel, people.

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Chapter 12 

He had arrived at Kira's residence, well aware that this was his second day here and he had only one more day left if he discounted this one. His mother had played a game with him when he had been three, she would hide her hands behind her back and ask him to guess how many fingers she was holding upwards. Most would think that it was a game of sheer luck, but Athrun had used probability equations when he had been three to guess the number correctly,but it also had todo with luck most of the time. It was like that now. Without any luck, he would be losing Cagalli very soon.

And then he saw a blonde head peeping out from a thorny bush and the sound of heavy panting and some queer hissing. Knowing who the blonde hair probably belonged to, his heart thumped insanely and for a minute, he was sure she'd hear his heart beating like some typical iron drum.

So he hurried over and curiously looked on from the corner of the garden he was now at, and spotted a hot and bothered Cagalli in a peculiar semi-squat, trying to hold a hissing, furious cat down by its hind legs, and he amusedly called out to her and she was startled, momentarily losing grip on the cat and letting go long enough for the cat to run off, but not before it took revenge by swiping at her left hand and leaving a long scratch and some blood.

Wincing in pain, she hissed herself, almost like the feline and tried to stand, but her centre of gravity had been misplaced a long time ago,and Athrun didn't need a crystal ball to predict what happened next.

She lost her balance and fell over into a pile of dead leaves behind her and started cursing and swearing, making such a comical scene that he had to laugh at her apparent clumsiness. Then he moved over to her very silently, the way he would stalk an animal in case it fled. He was afraid that she'd flee, but she didn't, and she lay there in a tumble oforange leaves, her blonde hair perfectly framed by the pointy leaves.

Cagalli looked up at him, and she saw he was gazing at her while she lay eagle-spread on the ground and stammered quite helplessly, "I-I like leaves."

He bent down and offered a hand, and she unwittingly tilted her face up to his, close, and he blushed a little, but she didn't notice because of the sun. And then she hesitantly put her hand in his and allowed herself to be pulled upright, but she didn't bother to dust leaves off herself immediately as another girl might have done, but allowed them to fall as and when they liked to.

He liked that about her. Heck, he liked everything about her.

"What is it?" she asked a little self-consciously when they both realised he was staring like an idiot at her. Finding his tongue suddenly tied into a terrible knot, he shrugged and looked away in case she fled, which was something he definitely did not want. But he had made her realise what she might have looked like after the tumble, and then she was self-conscious instantly. She immediately started to brush the leaves off her so she could save a bit of the dignity she had left after being caught in such an unflattering situation, and he let her tidy up herself first, then lookedat her said seriously, " We need to talk."

Not quite understanding or even detecting the unspoken meaning in his words, Cagalli stopped brushing her clothes and looked at him curiously, but blurted out before she could stop herself, "Kira speaks like that too!"

If she had realised what he had meant and that he was trying to settle a score, she would have fled. But she didn't know. So she had compared him to Kira, or rather, the serious tone that they often used.

And then she clapped her hand over her mouth because she realised how childish it sounded, thinking how Goebbels would have scolded her for making unnecessary comments the media would lambast her for, but he was grinning shyly and leading her to the extensive park that surrounded half the estate. She knew it was going to be a long walk then, it wasn't just their pace of strolling, the place itself was humongous.

As they walked at a leisurely pace, he watched her fidgeting and tying her scarf around her neck securely, and then made a stab at what he needed to tell her. He was glad the ZAFT ambassadors had left the day before, and that the embassy house only had a few servants, a few secretaries and of course, Kira and Lacus, who were stationed here almost permanently although they both held ORB citizenships.

"Can you be yourself when you're with me?" he asked quietly, albeit a little bluntly.

Nobody had ever asked her that before. Not even when she had changed so much during these two years that she had to second-guess every thought she made. She looked at the leaves she had trampled over and felt a strange pain in her chest, but she overcame it in mere seconds.

And her fingers were busy with her scarf, but they stopped as she stared at him. Unflinchingly, he gazed back seriously at her with such sincerity that she found herself nodding and biting her lip, a habit she had from young, all this before saying very honestly, "I tried to not be myself, but I don't think I can be anything else when I'm with you, Athrun."

He was smiling now as they continued to walk, not really seeing the orange leaves that crackled under them or the wide arch of trees that was extending out before them. But he didn't know that she was in misery and agony as she told him, or rather, admitted to him, that she could never be the kind of person she had tried so much to be when Athrun was with her.

"It's been a long time, hasn't it?" he said, not quite looking at her, his hands fingering something in his pocket. She wondered for a moment what it could have been, but she dismissed all the idle wonderings soon af.

She could not help sighing then as she repeated Meyrin's words that suddenly flashed through her head.

'Too long if you ask me." She muttered, then she regretted her confession and thought silently, "Maybe an eternity of not seeing each other would have been better after all."

He was concentrating on the trees in front of them now, saying to her, "I'll be returning to PLANT the day after tomorrow, but..."

And she couldn't help cutting in by saying desperately, "So soon?"

Then she wanted to slap herself for being such a fool, because he would suspect that she had never forgotten him even when they had been apart for two years. She bit her lip very hard and ignored the way his head snapped up to look at her when she had shown him traces of being a desperate fool around him.

Athrun paused and nodded, and then they continued walking even though she wanted to curse and yell at something. She knew jolly well that he wouldn't be staying that long anyway. Her stay here had been extended because she had work here to do with Lacus, but ETERNITY had been recalled by PLANT's Supreme Council to oversee some new reshuffling of positions in ZAFT, and the chairman had to be there to see it, that she knew very clearly.

And then she cursed the own desperateness in her voice because she had heard it and she knew he had heard it too.

Athrun was explaining why PLANT had recalled him, and she wasn't quite listening, and therefore said, "No" in a daze when he asked her about something that she didn't quite catch.

His head snapped up sharply and he was asking, "Are you listening to me, Cagalli?" and she was getting that queer sense of deja vu and answered that she was listening, asking him thereafter, "Why are you asking me that?"

He was sighing and replying, "Because I asked you if you thought the answer was a yes or no, and you said no, but there wasn't a yes or no to answer me with in the first place."

And then she knew why her twin brother and Athrun Zala were best friends and cursed both loudly and very, very desperately.

"Fine, I wasn't quite listening, but I got the gist of why you have to go back the day after tomorrow," she shot furiously back at him, quite mad that she had swore in front of him like some common idiot on the street.

He surprised her by laughing a genuine, warm sound she recognised and quite liked, even though she didn't want to admit it to anyone including herself, and he was choking between gasps of laughter, silently thinking that he had been mistaken all along and she hadn't really changed at all. But it was the truth that she didn't know it herself, but that wasn't the problem. He'd show her how to find herself again, he promised himself that.

She was annoyed that he was poking fun at her slips and punched him, not very hard and quite playfully, but forgetting that it was the exact spot she had punched him at the day before, and his eyes widened in shock and pain and he said, "Oof" in a funny sort of voice before doubling over and clutching his shirt.

Cagalli stared in horror at him and then screeched insanely, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I forgot!" and she placed her hands over his abdomen in a wild attempt to see if it was in a bad shape because of her reckless actions, and then she realised they were too close and coloured crazily although he was gazing at her and wasn't blushing like she was. And then she quickly stepped away and they continued walking and trying to pretend nothing had happened. But her heart was pounding, and she could feel her palms beginning to become a little sweaty, a sure sign of nervousness.

He was asking in an attempt to restart the conversation, "So why were you terrorising the cat?" and she stopped abruptly and remembered what had happened, instantly becoming so furious that he thought steam would stream and then start whistling out of her ears.

"It got into the house and dragged out and tore my documents that I left on the table" she said sulkily, "and if you hadn't called out to me, I might have been able to whup it pretty good."

Athrun was laughing again, and standing clear of her in case she decided to render him more pain, which was highly probable since she was glaring with poisonous eyes at him, and then he asked between his chortles, "Don't you have spares?"

Annoyed at his jovial manner, Cagalli glared at him before answering curtly, "Yes, I do, but that's not the point!"

He just laughed again, although it wasn't a mean laugh and she joined him after a while.

Then he remembered she got scratched and pulled her to him before he took her hand in his and pulled up the sleeve-cuff of her white shirt to see if her fingers were still bleeding. They hadn't quite stopped bleeding but were beginning to clot up pretty nicely.

He noticed, not for the first time, that her fingers weren't the kind most would be attracted to, they just weren't the kind that was used in watch or bracelet or nail-varnish advertisements all over town. His own fingers were long and slim, "although a bit pale", he thought, because his parents hadn't arranged for him to have a gene that made him tan and he couldn't seem to become as brown as Kira just by being in the sun.

But her fingers were small and cuddly, and a bit misshapened like a child's, and her hands were pretty small for an average person, although he knew they were capable of pulling a trigger quite efficiently.

"You have such small hands," he said absent-mindedly, and she was putting out her arms in an instant and staring at her own hands and saying in genuine wonder, "I do, don't I?"

He put it down slowly and continued to walk forward, but he didn't let go of her hand and she didn't protest either.

And when he bent over to kiss her on her cheek, she coloured such an intense red that he wondered if his lips would be burnt, but she let him although she didn't bend forward to encourage him or anything of that sort, but didn't say anything either. Well, seeing that he had caught her by surprise, he wouldn't expect her to move away in any case.

He felt like jumping into the air in jubilation and then getting down on his knees and thanking Haumea. Of course he stopped himself, because he was twenty years old, and coordinators were supposedly adults after reaching the big one-three- that is, thirteen.

Cagalli was telling him all about her plans for ORB and in return, he was telling her about what ETERNITY would witness in ZAFT although they both knew what was going on from news papers. It wasn't what they were talking about that mattered, it was the fact that they were talking to each other properly again.

She was saying that she missed everyone and Kira had allowed her to stay at the PLANT embassy he and Lacus were situated at, and how she liked that nobody could boss her around. As far as he had gathered, she had finished her work and wanted a bit of a break like him, and apparently, ORB's council and Amagi had given her the green light. Of course, her work with the pending event of re-location of Naturals in PLANT would continue, and Lacus also would have to work out the next few weeks of arrangements with her.

Athrun on the other hand, would return to PLANT to give his breakdown of the regrouping of ZAFT units now that the new class of soldiers who were both diplomats and wielders of deterrence were to arise. But in the meantime, he had at least one and a half days left. "With her," he hoped silently.

Then he felt a need to be recklessand gave in eventually because of the lack of better options. Her hand was warm and her small fingers were pressed in between his, the only thing that felt real at that point.

Still holding her hand in his, he turned and said to her, "If it doesn't bother you, will you spend your time with me before I go home the day after tomorrow?" and she was nodding eagerly and smiling like the desperate fool she knew she was.

And he was laughing again and she looked at him and told him almost wistfully, "I like your laugh."\

He was taken aback for a minute or two, not quite comprehending what she had said, but then it hit him soon after, and he wanted to shout that he liked everything about her just to see how she would respond.

Then Athrun was smiling but looking ahead so she wouldn't see, and he thought of the times he had laughed genially but in a secretly forced way when it would be rude not to laugh, and then thought to himself, "I don't think I can laugh in any other way when I'm with you.'

They arrived back at Kira's house and caught the same ginger cat busily shredding more paper in the garden that had a tattered ORB symbol printed on them. Cagalli wrestled her hand from his, and he felt a little sorry that that had happened when he felt her pull away, but she continued to move quickly ahead of him, then bellowed like an enraged bull, and the cat turned and fled for its life.

Kira who had been tinkering in the garage that also served as a mini laboratory when he needed a place to test out some programmes his co-workers and subordinates had created, headed out to see what the commotion was all about. He stopped and stared and spotted Athrun squatting very clumsily and holding a furious cat by its hind legs, while Cagalli was getting ready to thrash it.

Feeling sorry for the doomed cat, (he always kind of liked animals even when he was a child), he called out to Athrun, knowing that the cat would be able to wriggle free if he did, and watched in horror as his startled friend unconsciously slackened his grip, allowing the cat to indeed, wriggle free and run away, but not before scratching Athrun and pausing to hiss very poisonously at Cagalli. She gaped for a few minutes, eyes widened at seeing an enemy in the form of a cat and Athrun in a pile of leaves with his work clothes obviously ruined.

"All in a day's work," Kira called out jovially, not quite suspecting that he was digging his grave there and then, but he watched their faces loom with murderous intent and suddenly felt nervous.

"Kiraaaaaa!" they both yelled in great annoyance.

High above on the second storey where Lacus was typing out a proposal to handle the readjustments of housing in PLANT the naturals would live in, she thought she heard Kira's name being called.

But Lacus continued typing because she had no time to loose if she wanted to finish her tasks for the day fast. She briefly wondered if it was the mischief the cat an ambassador had left was getting up to, but shrugged and continued what she was doing, even though some yelling and curses that she wanted to blush at were being fired very loudly from downstairs.

Her blue haro that had recently been strangely loyal to Kira instead of her, suddenly bopped over from where it had been placed at the window ledge, and proceeded to screech, "Help! Help! He's getting killed! He's getting killed!"

She paused and giggled, thinking how random Kira could be when he programmed speech, and wondered if the blue haro would ever say anything of relevance. Maybe she would ask him to explain to her what he had been doing with the haros, especially the blue one which he seemed to be particularly fond of, almost similiar to the way she favoured the pink haro.

And then she continued typing her proposal very precisely and calmly, all this while hearing the howls of pain doming from the garden below that sounded strangely familiar get louder and louder.

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Author's notes:

Writing Truth has had a real kick, not literally of course. Thanks to those who have been consistently R-ing and R-ing, the encouragement goes far. Just a randompiece of information, the NANA live action movie song, ENDLESS STORY, performed by Yuna Ito, inspired Truth to a very large extent. Putting it on repeat mode helped, except I had to reset the count list about five times each time it hit the 120times mark.


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: No, I do not own GS/GSD and their miscellaneous characters, but damn, sometimes I wish I did. Then ASUCAGA wouldn't be hanging like that in some weird parody of the two and their responsibilities, yes? R&R&R please, last R stands for recommend.

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Chapter 13

Lacus could not believe her eyes when she saw the scene or the ruckus they had created before her.

Yes, she knew they were young at heart, and she knew they all wanted a bit of mischief now and then, but she could not believe that Kira was looking as rumpled and dirty as the mischievous children they had left behind with Markio in the orphanage and Cagalli and Athrun were sitting there arguing loudly with each other with bandages neatly wrapped around a few fingers each. She was about to ask them to stop arguing about whatever they were talking about, then she suddenly remembered that they were supposed to be talking, and shrugged almost invisibly and let them argue more. Such children.

When she had been a child, she had wanted to play all day long. When the androids or some servants reminded her to go to sleep on time,she'd distract them by various methods, then sneak off into the garden to mess around with a sand patch and build towers. She coould understand perfectly if they wanted to play or something, or maybe destress. But what they had gotten up to was sheer insanity.

She had finished her report about ten minutes ago, and had rapidly descended down the stairs to find Kira and ask him about what he had done to the blue haro which had been rolling around and repeatedly crying out for help.

And when she had gotten down, she had witnessed a complete fiasco. Athrun and Cagalli were rolling in the grass and wrestling with Kira and tickling him so mercilessly that he was actually crying with mirth. She had rushed over there and had separated them and their entangled limbs and made them sit down at the table inside after they had all calmed down and had stopped neighing with laughter like donkeys.

She had made Athrun and Cagalli go and wash their bloody hands and ask for bandages at the kitchen, and got Kira sit down and try to make him stop chortling even though the other two weren't tickling him anymore. The blue haro was now silent and rolling around aimlessly, although the other haros were trying to get it to play with them.

After they had all assembled back at the table, she paced up at down regally to get some footing first, she knew it always worked, and said quite authoritatively, "Cagalli, tell me what happened."

And Cagalli tried to say something but hiccupped and started laughing helplessly again and that made the other two start roaring with laughter as well, and Lacus, frustrated, actually stamped her foot. She hadn't done that since she was five and the servants hadn't let her eat ice-cream.

They just laughed like imbeciles some more.

Annoyed, she opened her mouth and they quickly fell silent because they were afraid she might go berserk, although seeing Lacus Clyne lose it was a highly rare occasion.Rare or not, it wasn't something one would welcome the way they welcomed the New Year. Exchanging wary glances and falling silent, Athrun, Kira and Cagalli prepared themselves to explain what had happened that had caused such a commotion, but were stunned when she proceeded to squeal in pure indignation, "How could you leave me out when you were all having so much fun together!?"

Kira sprung forward and tired to appease her by explaining how it hadn't been planned and they hadn't expected anything like that to happen at all, and Cagalli started babbling something about a stupid cat and Athrun tried to improve what they were saying by restructuring their completely incomprehensible sentences and then a bell rung and lunch was served and all three were stuffing their faces like the food they were eating was the last meal they would ever eat.

Lacus felt almost breathless by the time they started lunch with the other guests who had taken a break from their work in their rooms the ambassy had provided.

Quite bewildered at everything, Lacus held her knife and fork and stared, confused, at her lover and her best friends as they conversed through mouthfuls of food and grunts and some odd noises she had never heard before in her life. She wondered how they had actually managed to understand what was going on even through the whole mess of everything. So she ate a little and waited for Kirato regain some sanity, knowing that it wouldn't be too long before he did.

When Kira swallowed his mouthful and could speak properly again, he turned and apologised, "Sorry, Lacus. The wrestling made me hungry." And Cagalli was saying, "Me too," but she choked and turned red and Athrun was hurriedly getting her a glass of water patting her back and making her drink it and she was gasping very heavily while Kira was asking what was going on and the others were worriedly trying to make her breathe properly.

The secretaries which had joined them for lunch were staring and giggling and pointing. But Lacus was simply sitting there in a daze and wondering which planet her dream had transplanted her too. She wanted to pinch herself and see if she was sitting on seat of the toilet upstairs and daydreaming like she often did. Maybe today was just one of those days.

It was a wonderful relief when lunch as over and Athrun was saying to her that he had just received a notice from his secretary that the PLANT's Supreme Council needed him to discuss the list ETERNITY's council had drawn up regarding the specific Naturals who would be moving to PLANT soon.

Lacus checked her own computer and confirmed the notice too, so she led him to the white, oval room, as she called it, or simply, the room where she and the ambassadors held their meetings every morning. Cagalli excused herself and went to complete more assignments Goebbels had prepared for her in advance, and he was quite sorry to leave for the meeting room. She said that she would look over their official decisions later in the day just to keep in touch with the latest news, and Kira wandered back into his laboratory and the blue haro followed him happily. Tori tried to peck and chase it away, apparently jealous, but the blue haro simply ignored it.

As he departed to the meeting room with Lacus, Athrun glanced back at Cagalli. She had already set up her QUINd, a laptop without a visible screen where a touchpad controlled the documents that would materialise in front of her eyes, and she was concentrating on editing and putting in some suggestions in some proposal the ORB housing minister had submitted. He knew she would give the go-ahead in the next few hours, she was the sort which did advance work and asked for more. She hadn't been like that before, but she sure was now, she had already made a phone call and was furiously debating with Amagi over some issue.

As he sat down with Lacus, he snapped open his briefcase and took out the relevant documents while she flipped open the same copy of the document, but not before she instructed the pink haro who had followed her in to keep quiet.

"Do you approve of the following list?" she asked.

He was reading the list which comprised of children, a sprinkling of teenagers, young adults, and middle-aged working adults which PLANT had confirmed were able to contribute to the economy. Of course they made sure other people did the confirmation for them, and the 'other people' just happened to include Athrun Zala.

PLANT wasn't about to put its head on the chopping board and introduce Naturals into a Coordinator-majority world ,where unprepared Naturals would feel threatened and cause conflict to rise. The Naturals introduced first had to be mentally-prepaid for the relocation's challenges of different systems of housing, jobs, schooling and social stigmas. They couldn't possibly just pluck a few Naturals and dump them in PLANT, tha6t would be the ultimate recipe for disaster.

His job was to personally go through all one hundred and fifty of the selected candidates for the project and weed out those who appeared unprepared. Lacus would run through half and him, the other half. It was a tedious procedure, no doubt, but if they wanted peace, there wasn't any way out of it. Not unless everyone suddenly became happy little bunnies that rolled around nibbling grass and smelling flowers with absolutely no thoughts or actions of malice and suspicion in their cute little furry heads.

Over a thousand had been selected by PLANT and EA, and they had agreed to relocate upon EA's request, because they were willing to leave behind what they had to have a new start in an unfamiliar place if it could help to contribute to long-term peace, an extremely encouraging movement that had touched the hearts of the whole world. When he had heard of the overwhelming response, he had beamed quite sincerely, quite forgetting that he was in charge of going through the thousands personally. Well, now he remembered.

ETERNITY and other sub-councils of PLANT had selected the number on their hands now, and Lacus would represent PLANT to choose the final candidate along with him, who represented ETERNITY. The rest was up to the highest powers of the councils to decide and issue the declaration of the chosen people as the most instrumental part of the PLANT/EA Relocation Project to be launched in a few months' time.

The QUINd was flashing the list of people that had been short listed, and they looked through their respective 75 candidates for the next few hours wih Athrun making few notes on specific candidates he deemed as not ready to relocate.

The files he looked through were top-secret information about each and every of the candidates which EA had obtained, and the information about some of the chosen were damning. They disturbed Lacus, he could see it when he glanced at her, seated at the far end of the table,and frankly, they made him a little edgy too.

Amidst the list, there were even a few adults who had been part of Blue Cosmos' Extended Project but had been rescued before they were raised on the drugs that made them slaves to the Blue Cosmos. One girl's features looked so much like the girl Shinn had brought back onto the Minerva, Stellar Louisier, that he felt a little disconcerted. Then he found more of the Extended-affected candidates who sharedso many similar physical traits it was terribly disturbing.

Apparently, Blue Cosmos had done exactly what the first Coordinators had done,asironic as the truth was. They had tampered with genes for a while before resorting to drugs when they realised drugs bound soldiers tighter to the Blue Cosmos.

Their family history, stats and everything, even their former jail records and crimes committed, were recorded and flashing on the QUINd for his perusal.

He worked through all the candidates thoroughly for the next five hours with Lacus, checking their identities and their family backgrounds, but most importantly, what those around them had to say about them. He had to single out those questionable candidates and issue their names back to the committee to do re-evaluations.

By the time four hours had passed, he was down to the last three people to go through, with a current total of six candidates he would issue back to the various committees to re-evaluate. Six of them comprised of four young adults who were known to be wary of Coordinators, a young girl who had a history of weak lungs and was unlikely to take easily to PLANT's ventilation in deep space, and a fifteen year-old.

The fifteen year old boy caught his eye more than the others did. "Finn Amaris", he read. The boy had trouble accepting strangers even in his class and often picked fights with newcomers even though he was a clearly gifted boy who regularly topped the level. His parents on the other hand, were perfectly open-minded people who worked regularly with ORB Coordinator Engineers who had come to EA on ORB's request to help in the refinement of technology in their offices.

He ran a hand through his hair and stared at the sharp-featured, red-haired boy who had a sullen expression on his face, although Athrun knew those features were a sure guarantee that he would break many hearts later on.

If he, as head of ETERNITY were to withhold the boy back in EA's territories but allow his parents to go, what would become of the boy then? He glanced back at the boy's picture and felt a strange sense of incongruity, even though he didn't want to pay too much attention to only one case. The red hair and features were very fine, but something made him a little worried even though he could not quite place his finger on it yet.

He called over to Lacus who was about to finish like him, and she looked up from the other end of the table and stood gracefully, moving over to see the case he was troubled over.

As she approached his end of the long, oval table, he moved aside slightly to show her Finn Amaris, and scrolled down to show his family, and looked up at her, whereby the expression on her face stunned him. Her calm, beautiful face was shockingly pale and wan, although she was visibly trying to regain her composure, her mouth slightly agape in shock. She stumbled into a nearby chair and folded her hands neatly in her skirt even though they were visibly trembling. Her eyes were wide and her features stricken with something so intense, he could barely identify it as sorrow for a minute.

"What is it?" he asked, concerned with her apparent shock.

He wondered why she was so alarmed by a fifteen year old boy, and he scrolled down and found Finn's link to his mother. His mother was Senevia Amaris, maiden Name:Alster.

And then the red hair and fine features clicked in and he knew who Lacus was thinking of.

Fllay. Fllay Alster.

He remembered the time when Kira had gone beserk after a battle and had trembled so violently and screamed that it was his fault that Fllay had died. Of course he wasn't quite so sure he knew who Fllay was, but after the first war had ended, Kira had secretly told him everything that had happened between him and Fllay.

Lacus had also mentioned when Athrun was checking her for injuries that she had been threatened by Fllay Alster when she had accidentally gotten onboard the Archangel, but that was after Kira had appeared in the Strike and given her back to him to bring back on the coordinator ship. It was more of Kira who told him of everything about Fllay.

In fact, Yzak had told him that Fllay Alster had sneaked glances at him when he had been assigned the position of guarding her on Rau Le Creuset's order. Athrun vaguely wondered how Yzak had known the girl was sneaking glances at him when Athrun did it on a regular basis during chess sessions that Yzak was quite ignorant about.

He wanted to know if Lacus knew anything about Kira's relationship with Fllay, and raked his eyes over her face and thus confirmed his suspicions. Her head was in her hands and she looked immensely upset.

"Are you alright?" he asked very carefully, wondering if he should say anything more. If she had been Cagalli, he wouldn't even have been careful of the words he chose, he would havee already thrown caution to the wind and thrown his arms around her.

She looked up and he knew that she was close to crying and he moved over and she said clearly through her subsequent onslaught of tears, "I knew Fllay would be back one day."

She poured out her fears to him in a nearly steady voice even while her lips trembled violently, that Fllay would not let her have Kira and how Kira would never see anyone properly except for Fllay. For all her pureness, beauty and the rare wisdom beyond her years, Lacus Clyne was inexperienced in the heart's affairs. She had fallen for Kira so deeply she didn't know how else she could go without him.

Athrun had never known how insecure the princess of the Coordinator's heart had been after Kira had told her unwittingly that he had seen Fllay in her. She had known right from the start, that Kira was very attracted to the girl, and that he had loved her, perhaps so much that he had became a demon for her.

And then Lacus had still chosen to lose her heart to him, and she could never turn back and walk away because she knew she would die after that. She was fine when he was with her, but then any mention of Fllay would se her heart pounding and she once had to force herself to look in the mirror and say, over and over again, "I'm not her."

The world never knew that Lacus Clyne was a human, they treated her like a goddess and an angel to the extent that anything other than a smile on her face and a perfect life would seem strange where she was concerned.

Kira never knew anything of that sort although it was obvious he felt uncomfortable without Lacus around, when she had posed the way Mia Campbell had and communication had been cut off from Kira and her, Kira had been unsure of himself.

But Lacus had only been ten when she had been promised to Patrick Zala's son, and then, when she had been about fifteen going on sixteen, she had almost been killed aboard the ship that she was on to pray and sing for the souls that had been lost on Junius Seven.

She had been saved by a boy not much older than her and promptly fell for him even without knowing she had, and she had unconsciously revealed this to Athrun when she was safe again with a single, child-like sentence, "I think I like him very much."

Athrun was pretty sure their engagement was as good as over by then, but he didn't feel he had lost much of anything. It was true that he had feelings for her once, but they had faded over time, and come to think of it, who ever said she had the same feelings for him?

Lacus had only been fifteen when he had kissed her, it was easy for her to say, "oh alright" and get hitched according to what was arranged, because she hardly knew anyone else who she could possibly fall for. Her associates were already involved in the war, she had been the only one left as a civilian with hands unstained by the blood of the Coordinator's enemies. The Coordinators themselves knew that, and that became even more of a reason to love and protect Lacus Clyne.

And she hadn't known that Kira had a relationship with the girl who had tried to kill her, and she hadn't known that Fllay was the first girl he had ever loved, only after her death had shattered him for her and all the world to see. She had been together with him after that until now, but she had never been sure where they stood, and sometimes she was frightened that the memory of Fllay would take him away from her again. Her insecurity was becoming more real over time with nothing said about her fears to Kira, Athrun realised.

Lacus had clearly worn herself out but the tears were still flooding down her cheeks even though she still looked very pretty with red eyes and a runny nose, and as Athrun was about to say something to convince her that her fears were unfounded, the doors were flung open and Kira burst in, panting from the exertion of running, pulling her out of her chair and before she could protest, he cut of what she was about to say and he kissed her fiercely.

Athrun's coordinator brain was telling him to shut his mouth and stop staring and gaping like an idiot, but it wasn't quite successful. So he stood there with his mouth open, staring and gaping like an idiot.

* * *

Author's notes: It's weird how this seems almost like a KxL thing, but I couldn't resist putting them into the picture for a bit. It's unreal how perfect they seem to be as a couple all the time in GSD (which I kinda hated by itself),especially since we all know that Kira saw Fllay when he looked at Lacus once. In my opinion, no girl,even if she's Lacus, can stay sane like that, no?

But no issue, the KxL thing isn't the main picture, we all know ASUCAGA IS.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

"Alright," she found herself saying as he calmly informed her they were going out for dinner without her brother and Lacus who were upstairs kissing themselves senseless.

Cagalli was about to turn into the corridor that would lead her into her room,but then she remembered something and abruptly paused while she was halfway up the stairs and asked hesitantly, "Do I have to wear a dress to get into the place where we're dining at?"

He had already thrown on his navy-coloured coat and was trying to tie a maroon scarf around his neck and called out cheerfully, "No."

So she hurried up to the room Lacus had lent her and threw on a clean white shirt with long sleeves and proper cuffs in case the paparazzi took photos of her, she knew she couldn't go wrong in her work clothes. And then she made very sure that she was wearing a knee-length workskirt which was a deep olivine colour she quite liked.

Of course she made sure she was wearing her shorts underneath, she needed them like she needed air when it came to the region of skirt-wearing. And then she grabbed her handbag Goebbels had made her carry, emptied its contents into a satchel she had used when she was schooling for what felt like about an eon ago, then swiftly dumped in some sweets she had been saving, and hurried down without bothering to look at her reflection in the mirror.

She hadn't looked much into a mirror for her own sake unless it was before some important event where they made her sit in front of dressing table to do the whole works of hair and make-up.

He was waiting for her at the foot of the staircase, and she had to admit the dark navy-blue coat looked very sharp on him. He always knew how to dress well, even as bodyguard.

It wasn't a wonder that Yuna had quickly deduced that she was nuts about him, it hadn't taken the incident when he had caught them laughing and wrestling on the carpet to tell him that she didn't fancy anyone else but 'Alex Dino'.While Yuna had been the type who cared more about spending time to look sharp than worrying about ORB's state of chaos, Athrun Zala was one of the few blessed people in the galaxy who could wake up looking like a million dollars or that sort of thing.

Not that she cared of course. She scarcely looked into a mirror her whole life, she couldn't care less if he did or he didn't.

Athrun was taking her hand in his and bringing her to his car- a black Lamborghini. She would have pulled away, not because she didn't like her hand being held in his,but because she was afraid that she'd get used to it and be hurt when he left, which was pretty soon. But she didn't pull away because she was staring in awe at his car. She wasn't shallow, ye Gods, she wasn't, but it was a thing of beauty.

Cagalli had been homeschooled for almost her whole life, and she had studied surprisingly well, but when she was twelve, she had demanded that she go to a normal school, incognito of course, because she wanted some friends of her own age.

Her friends hadn't known she was Uzumi Nara Atha's daughter, because she had just told them that she was Cagalli Yula, and Uzumi Nara Atha had never shown his adopted daughter to the public before, she never said she wanted to be a performing monkey anyway.

So her friends had known her as the fun-loving, trouble-creating girl who could rattle off the model names of guns and rifles and car models as well as any boy with war history nailed right down, and when she had gone back to home schooling after a classmate had blown her cover, she had missed all her friends very badly with no way to contact them after that. But they had managed to find a way to send a book of car names and the kind of things they knew she was interested in, so she could have opened a car manual shop by the time she was fifteen.

So of course she could tell Athrun's car was a Lamborghini, and nobody had to be a car expert to tell that it was a very nice one too. But other than the car, its familiarity struck her hard.

Biting her lip a little, she asked him, "Did you come here yesterday morning?" and bit her lip some more when he nodded. She knew whose car it had been now.

She got into the seat next to him and the seatbelts strapped her in tightly. As the engine roared and he manned the steering wheel along the roads, she looked at the setting sun with its vivid pinks, reds, yellows, and orange. The horizon met the sun almost flawlessly, almost as if the rays were kissing the earth. Then she rememebered something and swivelled around to look at Athrun.

"So how did you know they were kissing?" she asked curiously while the traffic light made the car pause at a turn point.

"Because I was talking to Lacus and he came in and they started doing you-know-what" Athrun said dryly as he frowned a little at some random driver who cut into his lane without signalling. She chewed her lip as she pondered what he had been saying, and gave up trying to understand what had happened because she never really understood what Kira and Lacus were up to most of the time.

"It concerned Fllay," he continued, and her head which had been facing downwards while she was digging her worn, brown canvas schoolbag for a sweet snapped right back up where she oggled at him comically. But he didn't see, he was concentrating on the road because the road, in his opinion, was full of lunatics like the one he had just met.

"Fllay Alster?" she said in disbelief, "Kira's..?"

He nodded and continued as the light turned green, moving quickly ahead and ready to overtake the driver who had cut into his lane without signalling for the second time.

"Yes. A candidate I was looking at had her red hair and her features, you know, and it turns out his mother was Fllay's second cousin, assuming George Alster's brother's child had a cousin who was the boy's mother."

"Oh," she said, a little confused, not quite getting the system of first and second cousins, she never had anyway, since she had no relatives except her father who had been an only child, Kira nonwithstandin, of couse.

"So what happened after that?" she continued inquisitively, not aware that she was more interested than she realised.

He squinted at the road ahead as the sunset began to become stronger and replied, "So Lacus got flustered and revealed all her fears to me, and then Kira burst in quite suddenly.

Turns out that he knew what we were talking about because he had tinkered with the blue haro, but apparently he did it too often and too excessively, although he had just aimed to make it share a link with the pink one so it could be like a walk-talkie for him and Lacus.

And then he was in his lab working as you know, and the blue haro malfunctioned because of all the tinkering he did with it, and it became a sort of eavesdropping device according to where the pink haro was.

So he heard what she said to me and then when he got into the room, we all know what happened thereafter," he concluded, focusing on the route he was about to take.

"Oh," was all she said as she smiled and bent down and continued to scrabble around in her continued quest to locate the sweets in her bag.

He noticed she was fumbling everywhere in the bag she was carrying and took his eyes of the road for a few seconds to see her dumping out its contents onto her lap just in time. He knew he wasn't such a good driver that he could take his eyes off the road for more than a few seconds, since the only person who could drive blindfolded and not die was probably Meyrin Hawke, when she had driven the jeep like a mad person while avoiding the gun bullets, even doing some fancy drifting moves around the difficult bends of the roads. It had been like some kind of action movie, but he had been too focused on trying to stay alive that he hadn't enjoyed the experience very much.

At the next traffic light, Athrun looked back at Cagalli who had all her things spread out everywhere on her lap and was trying to hold something in one hand while using the other to open her bag and stuff everything in it at the same time.

"Don't you ever wish you had three hands?" he asked dryly, shifting some of the edge of her lap where the miscellaneous items looked ready to commit scuicide.

"Uh-no, why do you ask?" she said absentmindedly while she continued to sift around and flip some notepads over.

He snorted and hauled open her bag while she gathered everything up in her now-free hand and successfully swept everything back into it.

Cagalli breathed her thanks in relief and proudly opened her fist to reveal brightly coloured sweets that she had been clutching like treasures before that.

"Here," she said proudly, offering him a sweet.

He stared at her and then took one because it would have been rude to tell her he didn't really share her sweet tooth unlike Kira, and because it was Cagalli who was offering him the sweet. He'd do anything for her. He was pretty sure then that if she had asked him to eat his Infinite Justice Gundam for her, he would have gotten out his knife, fork, and some pepper, and sat down to eating metal for the rest of his life.

As they neared a little cliff, she glanced around and asked, "Is the place we're having dinner at near a beach?" and he nodded, although it wasn't the same one they had been on previously.

She helped herself to a sweet too and happily peeled of its wrapper before she popped it in, then sat quietly in bliss.

He did too, and thought the sweet was actually quite nice, since it was coffee-flavoured, which he really didn't mind at all. In fact, as long as she was the one who presented it to him, he didn't mind anything at all. As they pulled up near the coast, and the door automatically unlocked, she pulled off the safety-belts and shot out of the car like a streak of lightning, obviously eager to get onto the beach, but not before she dropped something that had previously been on her lap.

Athrun stared and picked up a little rag doll which had a long extension string behind it and a mop of purplish-blue hair tied in a ponytail, reminiscent of…

"Yuna Roma Seiran?" he said aloud when he flipped the little doll around. Then he knew that she had been carrying it around with her like some kind of secret pet while he had pined away unwittingly for the last two years.

She had once made him smile and laugh like a fool, she still had that kind of power over him, and the realisation of that truth goaded him more than the doll he held now.

He clenched the doll very tightly in his fist, suddenly enraged that she had shown any trace of attachment to Yuna Roma Seiran, and leapt swiftly out of his car, slamming the door shut angrily and locking it with a 'click'. Far below him, he saw her moving towards the coastline and wanted to scream for her to turn back immediately.

Cagalli had already run onto the beach and deposited her shoes somewhere on a rock and was playing and splashing, shouting for him to some and join her, and he got to where she was in no time at all, sliding down the weathered rock that was the gentle-sloping cliff.

Marching to her, but first throwing off his own shoes the way he had watched her do, he moved into the warm seawater where she was bending down, looking for a seashell to "take back to Lacus", she excitedly suggested. He really couldn't care what she did as long as she could explain to him what a ragdoll in the image of Yuna Roma Seiran was doing in her bag.

He stood behind her, tall and stoic in the water with her back turned towards him while she continued to splash around and then he called her name fiercely, still clenching the doll in his fist.

Not detecting the dangerous note in his voice, she continued to play and mess around, and hummed a little "What?" to him, but when she didn't show any sign of turning around, he grabbed her by the back of her arms and forced her to turn around to look at him in an akward locking of arms. Her arms were covered by the sleeves of her shirt, but he knew that they were delicately sprinkled with freckles, and he held them tightly, suddenly afraid that she' take off.

Puzzled at his sudden aggressiveness, she put her head on one side and repeated innocently, "What?"

Thoroughly irritated, he held up the doll by it's long string and dangled it in front of their faces although his grip on her arm didn't slacken.

"Why do you keep this with you?" he shot furiously at her and saw that her eyes had widened and she had gone just a little red with something he didn't identify as embarrassment, but saw it as nervousness which made him want to track down and find Yuna Roma Seiran and kill him. Of course that wasn't possible.

"I-It's a Yuna doll," she stammered, and his grip on her arm didn't loosen when he retorted, "Anyone could see that."

She was suddenly frightened of the way he was holding her and rashly started thrashing violently against his grip and he let her break free easily, but he didn't expect her to turn back, face him, and lunge at himto grab the doll then charge out from the water and leave him standing like a fool in the sea.

He thought she had shown him what he meant to her, and how much more worthy a doll made like her former fiance was when it was compared to him, and he wanted to hit something in his anguish.

But he stood there instead, frozen, and he was hurt although he couldn't explain why, and then he heard her call out to him from the coast and he looked up and turned over to where she was. Cagalli was reaching out for him, the expression on her face hesitant, but he jumped at it and proceeded to wade his way out of the water as quickly as he could.

And he cursed himself for liking to be made a fool by her.

When he got to her, she was gripping a long wooden stick she had obtained from somewhere, and she started brandishing it like a sword. He waded out of the last of the water; his pants wet to his knees, and strode over to her, similarly barefooted. She had hung the doll on a tree nearby by its long cord and cheerfully handed him the stick.

Bewildered, he looked from the stick, to the doll, then at her, and asked, "What am I supposed to do with this?"

She growled and yanked it out of his hands, frustrated, then proceeded to swing the long wooden stick like a bat at the doll which made the cloth doll swing into the air with a loud thump that actually sounded like it hurt.

"That's what you do with it, you idiot!" she cried.

"Oh" he said.

She turned to him and put it in his hands again, and told him to try it too, and when he whacked the doll, she shouted that even his grandmother could do better, then when he thumped it so hard the thing actually flew upwards and whistled around the tree branch as an axis and got stuck, she let out a whooping cheer and pumped her fist in the air violently.

Then they were both laughing at the ridiculous state the doll was in, and she was saying without any malice, "Lacus made that for me to use it if I ever felt like I wanted to throw in the towel and give up."

And he was sorry that he had been so rough with her and took her hand in his, wanting to apologise but she laughed and pulled away from him, running to get her shoes and shouting over her shoulder that she was so hungry, she would cook and eat him if they didn't get going.

Athrun hurried after her and fetched his shoes while she gazed at something far beyond the ocean with an expression that seemed a little like wistfulness. So they moved on and the last he saw of the doll was a tiny purple peck hanging high up in some branches where nobody would notice it ever again. With time, it would be forgotten and be reduced to nothing.

While they strolled along the beach, they joked and talked of merry things although they argued about some things that were quite insignificant, and then ended up having to agree to disagree. Cagalli wondered aloud what Kira and Lacus would be eating for dinner since Athrun had left them where they were, and Athrun chuckled and said they probably wouldn't be hungry at all.

By the time they reached the restaurant, their clothes had already dried and they had worked up an appetite each. He didn't care even if they arrived as wet as dogs that had been turned out during a rainy day, as long as she was there, he wouldn't be bothered by such things.

And as they walked into the cosy looking restaurant his secretary had kept rattling off about when he had asked her to confirm his arrangements for his lodging in EA's territory, Athrun thought to himself that it was a lucky thing his brain could pick up random bits of information like where a nice restaurant was, especially since he didn't really care what he ate for dinner half the time.

The menu was mostly seafood, probably because of the proximity of the restaurant to the sea, but half the dishes were crab and lobster dishes, something quite messy that he wasn't prepared to deal with, but Cagalli turned to him with sparkling eyes that rendered him quite breathless before she proclaimed that she liked chilli crabs very much.

"O-kay," he thought watching her wield the little, well, not so little spiked end hammer with such finesse that he was surprised she was using it to crack open the crab and not split some unlucky idiot's head who got in her way.

She cracked open everything with little difficulty and they dug in, although he had to keep stopping to breathe and drink coldwater, and then he saw her ring not to laugh and he glared at her, saying that it wasn't fair because she had lived with the Desert Dawn resistance and gotten used to their spicy food while he had lived on bland tv dinners on a ship for almost all of his life.

"Where are your bodyguards?" he asked her suddenly.

"Back at the ORB embassy." she answered cheerfully, "Why do you ask anyway?"

He grinned and said, "I thought they would have wanted to come and protect you."

She waved away his wisecracking attempt and wiped her flushed lips, presumably red from the chilli's sting, and retorted, "I told them I didn't need any bodyguards when I was a Desert Dawn Resistance fighter and if I couldn't handle the situation, Kira Yamato, my twin, who happens to be the pilot of the legendary Freedom which only ended the first and second war, would lend me a hand."

Cagalli chortled with glee, then continued, "They begged me to bring them along so they could learn a thing or two from Kira, but I told them no and got them to take a break after we did some hand-to-hand-combat and I knocked them senseless."

Athrun raised an eyebrow quizzically and said, "Shouldn't you replace them with better bodyguards?"

And she looked at him and laughed again before tucking in once more. Other girls would have pouted and been coy with him, but not her. She wasn't 'other girls' anyway.

The waiters had given them a table stuffed in a little corner so nobody would notice them, and the people there were too busy stuffing themselves in a place with cheerful conversation that nobody bothered them for the whole evening. But in return, both of them had to give autographs to all the waiters who had qeued up already.

Athrun simply scribbled his signature, amused that the waiters thought so highly of them, but Cagalli emptied out all her bag's contents again and took out all her precious sweets and placed them between the napkins they signed on after footing the bill. She refused to let him pay for her of course.

Then she grinned at him, told him that she was going to get the shell for Lacus of it was the last thing she did, and proceeded to dart out of the restaurant with the waiters nearly prostrating themselves at her feet. One was almost weeping and even said he would frame the sweet wrapper to show it to his grandchildren next time.

Athrun shuddered when he thought of the party the ants would be having and hurried after her into the cool night breeze. Her hair was moving almost rhythmically in the wind like his own, and she looked at him with very wise eyes and he felt a pang of sorrow assault him. She probably realised that he was trying to settle the score they had left behind two years ago, and he knew she wasn't quite too keen on that, although he hoped the true reasons were not those he had been afraid of.

He could have ended it all with dinner and maybe a goodbye hug or that kind of thing, and then they'd have settled the score because they could talk to each other again without any walls in between. That might have been good enough for her. But he wasn't looking for that. He never had been when it concerned her.

So he chose to follow her when she stepped a little way to the side and walked, away from him.


	15. Chapter 15

Disclaimer: I don't own GS/GSD and we all know it. R&R&R please.

* * *

Chapter 15

Cagalli had insisted that she go back into the water to find a nice shell for Lacus, and maybe one for Kira too, although it was quite dark by the time they left.

She knew he had no obligation to stay behind with her, but he had chosen to, and she had been thrilled even though she tried not to show it and remained silent. He would leave soon, she had to get used to being without him once more, and she was furious at the unfairness of it all. She could get used to not having him, but only if she had a year to try and forget, but it had taken a few hours only to remember her longing for him.

Then the moon had found its way from behind the dark clouds and the water was illuminated with all the shells she could possible choose from glimmering t her from the sand at the bottom of the sea.

So Cagalli had taken off her shoes, deposited them on a nearby rock as she had before, and waded right in. She had shouted that he needn't follow her, but he had done likewise without really knowing why he wanted to get himself wet again.

And there they were, wading around in the sea with his pants rolled up to his knees in a comical fashion and her skirt hitched up and tied on one side to reveal her shorts that he had teased her about and stopped only when she threatened to punch him. He never understood why she had to wear shorts underneath, but her quirks had been like a net that drew him in. He lightly asked her, "Are you sure you can choose a shell? From what I see, you've got a tough decision."

"But I'll get that shell for Lacus, if it's the last thing I do," she assured him confidently.

She was having a hard time choosing her mind, and stunned him when she suddenly sighed and flopped down in the zone where the sea met the coast, soaking herself entirely amidst all the glimmering shells. He looked down at her and saw that her eyes were closed even while her hair and clothes were getting soaked with salty water.

"Are you alright?" he asked her concernedly, raking his eyes over her to see if she was tired or anything.

Without opening her eyes, she sighed contentedly.

"Yes. I just want to stay like this a while longer, then I'll just take the first shell my hands can feel, since I can't make up my mind. You pick one too for Kira, go on."

So he bent down and chose a delicate conch shell which had one side lined with mother of pearl which made it glimmer. Then he saw a little oyster shell which had been abandoned by an oyster with a dent in the middle.

Squinting at it, it was possible that the oyster had formed a pearl and dented its own upper shell. Ignoring the floating Cagalli, he took a small, wet rock and knocked the jagged edge against the little dent of the oyster shell and bore a hole through it. The dent had weakened the region enough for a little knock to break the centre and it was a surface with a hole in it now.

Smiling crookedly, he took the string from his neck and slipped off the ring, placing it securely in his pocket, before stringing the little deformed oyster shell on.

"Cagalli," he said softly.

'Yes?" she muttered, still not opening her eyes but flopping over to face him even though she hadn't opened her eyes as of yet. She looked like a mermaid that had been washed upon shore with her soft blonde hair drifting in the sea and her features highlighted by the moon.

"Sit up straight," he commanded, and he crossed over to her as she sat upright, dripping wet from the back on the shallow ocean bed. He knelt; close behind her and flung the string with the oyster shell strung upon it over her head and tied it securely into a knot.

Her eyes were opened now, and her fingers were accidentally entwined with the string and his own. He wrapped his fingers around hers and didn't let go.

"What's this?" she questioned inquisitively.

"An oyster shell I found" he muttered as he fiddled with the string so the knot was at the nape of her neck below her hair.

"Ah." She said, and freed her fingers from his to pick up the shell and look at it.

She was silent and he was afraid she would pluck it off her neck, but she turned herself partially around so she could face him and said simply, "I like it. Thanks."

His clothes were now as wet as hers because he was now sitting in the water and hugging her from behind and she was settling into his awkward embrace in return. Cagalli would have turned to face the sea once more, but he kept her head sideward the way she had turned it towards him previously and kissed her very gently to test the waters, trying to ignore the loud thumping of his heart.

A few seconds later, she had pushed him away and stumbled up, dripping water as she quickly ducked her head downwards and her hands found a random shell and she hastily plucked it out from the water.

"L-let's go now" she muttered, her fringe hiding her eyes from him. He was staring at her, dazed, and he reached out to brush the hair from her eyes but she swept away his hand and refused to look up or let him see her eyes.

And then she grabbed the shell for Lacus and stumbled out of the water, tripping slightly, but he held onto her and pulled her down to him, not quite caring that they were getting wetter than before.

"Let go." She stuttered, cursing herself for not being able to form proper words and the way she was betraying her nervousness.

"No," he said obstinately although his voice was firm still, "Do you still feel for me?"

"Yes" she said with a little hesitation, "but what happens when you leave and go back to PLANT? Where will we be then?"

"Does that matter?" he cried passionately, "Why can't we be together even if there's distance between us? You know I could give up being ETERNITY's chairman if you wanted me too!"

"Because you have better people suited for you everywhere else but here with me, although we both know now that we probably could handle ourselves and our responsibilities at the same time if we tried. Meyrin or some other girl would make you as happy ormore happy than what I can do," she answered equally stubbornly, still trying to pull her hand away.

"That's not true!" he shot back, "and you know it better than anyone else!"

He managed to pull her down to him and she landed terribly and ungracefully with a loud splash and he swiftly ran his hands through her wet hair and pressed her face to his fiercely, effectively cutting off her violent protests. Then his heart started beating so loudly again he thought she could hear, because he knew she was responding to him, but something went off his mind and he cut them off and pulled both of them to their feet, swivelling his head in all directions to assess the situation.

"What is it?" she was asking breathlessly, her lips fuller than ever and swollen, but he bid her to be quiet and pricked up his ears.

"Stay here" he ordered, and although it pained him immensely, he tore her hands from him and ran towards the cliff, repeating his command for her to stay there. She was wary too, she knew something was bothering him but she couldn't identify what it was.

He knew that someone was watching them. He knew it.

"Athrun!" she cried very suddenly from behind.

He whirled around, alarmed at her cry, and saw her staring at the nearby thicket of bushes and trees in the forest beyond the other side of the cliffs.

Athrun bounded over to her and pulled her out of the water.

'What is it?" he asked tensely, seeing the way her lip was quivering and how her gun was already in her hands. If she hadn't felt threatened, she wouldn't have pulled out her gun so quickly.

"Someone was hiding there," she said cautiously, "but I pulled out my gun and he ran off."

He looked around, but there was no movement at all.

"Come on," he said confidently. "There weren't any photos taken, because I didn't see a flash or hear a click, and in the proximity, if there had been a camera, the obvious would have been seen by us."

She looked around, not quite trusting his explanation, then when she saw nothing, she relaxed and slipped the gun snugly unto the pocket of her skirt.

"I didn't know you had a stun-gun with you," he said, amused at her guerrilla instincts.

"You have one too, and I bet the one you have now is not just a stun gun, don't you?" she retorted, fetching his coat he had placed on the rock where their shoes were.

He wore the coat and put his arms into the sleeves, then grinned as she dipped her hands into his pockets and retrieved his own gun, fully loaded with bullets.

"I knew it!" she trumpeted in victory, not quite alarmed that he was equipped with a fully-loaded revolver and was ready to kill if need be. She knew Athrun was an ace crack shot, he'd never miss the arms and legs of an enemy if he didn't want to aim for the head or heart.

"Alright." He conceded. "Let's go home now."

She looked up at him, scrunching her eyebrows a little, and he was struck by how much she looked like Kira from some angles. Kira had been slightly shorter than him, about four centimetres the last time he had noticed, and Lacus was thankfully about a hundred and sixty centimetres tall next to Kira, who was a hundred and seventy centimetres tall.

But Cagalli was exactly four centimetres taller than Lacus, an the ten centimetre height difference from both the males and females, Kira and Cagalli not withstanding, was quite coincidental to say the least.

"Home?" she questioned, "I thought you were living at a different PLANT Embassy house for this trip?"

He chuckled, took her hand and led her across the sand.

"Kira said he'd lend me his clothes and there're plenty of rooms now that most of the ambassadors have left." He said, not quite hiding his glee.

"Oh," she said nervously, "Then I can't wear those pyjamas Lacus wanted to lend me today."

"What do you mean?" he asked as they got into the car.

"W-ell, they're pink and pink's not really my colour so…" she trailed off, a little embarrassed that he would see her looking as if she had been hired to advertise cotton candy or something like that kind of thing.

He snorted with laughter and turned to key to start the engine.

When they finally got home and rang the bell, since neither of them had keys, they heard a rush from the inside to get to the door, and in an instant, Kira had thrown open the door and announced, "I have good news! We're getting engaged!"

They stood, shivering the cold and staring at the beaming Kira who had his arms akimbo and a smile that didn't look like it would ever disappear plastered across his face.

"Umm, I hate to break your bubble," Athrun began cautiously, "but Kira…"

"Yes?" the brown-haired coordinator said excitedly.

"Hell's freezing over and we want to come in!" Cagalli yelled impatiently.

Kira noticed them shivering pitifully for the first time and said very calmly and wisely, "Ah."

When they got in and shut the door so the cold night winds of Berlin couldn't get in, Lacus bustled up to them; smiling so dazzlingly that Cagalli rushed and hugged her so tightly that the songstress squealed like a child.

"Congrats!" she cried, and pressed the shell she had taken from the beach into Lacus' hands, Lacus beamed, even though she was now a little wet from Cagalli's dripping hug and said, " I'll treasure this, Cagalli."

Then he remembered the shell he had taken for Kira and casually handed it to Kira who knocked the little corners and promised to tinker with it the next morning if he had spare time.

And then Lacus abruptly turned to Athrun and said seriously, "We need to finish up the last of the list."

He didn't mention the fact that she was the one who got distracted because he was afraid Kira would go all weird on them, so he promised to finish it up that night after he took a shower first.

But by the time he got to the shower, the door had already been closed and he could hear some horrible tuneless singing issuing out from it.

"Cagalli?" he bleated piteously as he stamped his legs in an effort to be warm.

"Uh-yes?" she gurgled.

He sighed and muttered, "forget it," and slumped off to set up his QUINd and finish up the last three names although he could feel salt crystals forming in his hair already.

A few minutes later, Athrun sat in the meeting room, staring hard at the QUINd, still wondering what to do about Finn Amaris. Then he made a decision there and then and put Finn's name on the finalised list of approved candidates. He wasn't about to deny a fifteen-year-old the chance to start afresh in a new environment where he had a chance to make new friends again. Who knows what might happen?

Another name was disturbing him. The final name he was dealing with was a twenty-two year old working adult, Jun Thornier. Jun Thornier had been living in America, EA territory for his whole life, and he had relatives who supported the Blue Cosmos in ORB, although they had died in the war.

Jun wasn't particularly fond of Coordinators though, and although he had personally volunteered to join the Relocation Project, Athrun wasn't quite sure that someone who regularly suppressed his chronic depression with drugs could take the newfound stress o living in a foreign environment permanently. He sighed and placed Jun Thornier under the list to be re-evaluated.

Then Lacus glided in as he finished, and she saw that he had completed his task and giggled at his mangled, wet hair, saying that she'd combine their reports and send it together while he took a shower.

He gratefully stood up and took Kira's spare towel and some comfy looking flannel pyjamas he wouldn't have worn normally, and moved quickly to the bathroom.

Cagalli had been blowing bubbles, he realised.

Although she hadn't flooded the toilet like he would have half expected, there were bubbles on the ceiling that must have floated up and got stuck there. As he lathered himself well, Athrun evaluated his chances and knew the time was almost right. The ring was still in his pocket, the ruby still like a single drop blood, but fiery and tireless.

When he had bought the ring, he had used two month's entire pay as a redcoat, but that hadn't quite deterred him when he had left for ZAFT when they had been eighteen, but not before awkwardly presenting it to her by taking her hand and slipping it on clumsily and kissing her goodbye.

He wondered why it had to be so ironic that the day after tomorrow was the day he was leaving for PLANT again.

He finished showering quickly and rinsed the remaining salt out of his hair, then dried himself, dressed and stepped out, keen to see if there was anymore work assigned by his secretary so he could complete it during the night and have his day off with her tomorrow. He would have to leave and she would similarly go back to ORB and then they'd be apart.

The truth was, he didn't want to leave without her with him.


	16. Chapter 16

Disclaimer: I don't own GS/GSD, but I think ASUCAGA is meant to be even if Fukuda thinks they are like, 'comradely love' or something half-crapped like that, yah. So R&R&R please. Spread the news.

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Chapter 16 

When she had crawled under the warm, colourful quilt in a room Lacus provided for her, she had thought of the evening's events and blushed red enough to know that her face could have been used to control traffic, and she was glad the room was dark and there was a quilt to hide under even when there was no one in the room except her.

She had stayed awake for a few hours at a stretch hearing Lacus speak. It was wonderful how Kira had told her that he didn't need anybody else but Lacus there and then and then he had thrown her the blue haro which beeped and opened to reveal a ring he had wanted to give her on her birthday but couldn't wait.

Of course they didn't really see a need to get married and that kind of thing since they were already like a married couple, but Kira wanted to and Lacus didn't mind either. Of course she wouldn't, thought Cagalli blithely. So they had stayed up late to talk into the night until Lacus had left and Cagalli had been left alone to her thoughts for a long time.

But when Cagalli awoke, it was because she had been trained to wake at six-thirty in the morning to get ready for a meeting with her ministers in ORB, and she couldn't quite kick the habit now and she never had tried to in any case. So she stretched and yawned like a cat and got up, rearranging the spreads in a matter of minutes and taking her face towel and toothbrush, ready to get washed up to start work early.

It didn't occur to her that nobody woke up earlier than her, so when she went down with her documents, she was faced with an empty hall and basically, nobody.

She had put on Lacus's pink pyjamas and the bunny-head slippers and walked to the bathroom, but first bumping into a few corners along the way. Her sense of direction wasn't quite as proficient as Kira's and she actually made a few wrong turns before she got to the bathroom, and charged in, irritated that she had wasted a few minutes wandering around. It wasn't that she couldn't afford to get lost, she just didn't want to get lost. She had a fear of that, si

After she brushed her teeth and changed into something presentable for work, she washed her face and looked into the mirror in front of her, noting that her lips were still a little swollen from the chilli last evening. Then she thought of something else that might have made them swollen and coloured rapidly, then quickly scurried out of the room like a little rat, half to escape from the reflection she saw that made her blush.

Flipping open her cell, she read the messages that had come assigning her tasks, but she had finished most of them and was left with the meagre ones she could finish quickly in a morning if she sat down properly to it. So she grabbed the QUINd and sneaked out to the garden with Kira's coat over her shoulders in case it was cold, she wasn't very familiar with the area's weather.

Cagalli thought it might be a nice change if she could do her work in the garden under an open sky for once and unbothered, but the garage a little distance from to the garden was already bursting with sounds. Peeking in, she saw her brother doggedly typing a programme on his own QUINd with a dozen extension wires peeking out from a drive while Tori chirped at the blue haro that Kira was his property, physically and intellectually, so the haro could go 'toot' itself if it wanted to. He hadn't woken up early either, he had simply stayed awake throughout the whole night to work, and she knew he had no problem with not going without sleep for a few days.

She laughed at the electronic 'beep' when the mechanical bird tried to swear, thinking that Lacus had been quite correct in saying that Athrun would keep his promise to her and break Kira's codes and sensor some unsavoury language Kira had enabled the mechanical toys to say.

She knew both of them were good at tinkering with mechanical things and wished she had their talent too, because she often messed up when she tried to reprogram her QUINd to custom-meet her needs as a user. Perhaps she would ask Kira to help her after that. Then she sighed and looked at her twin, wondering if she should tease him into talking about Lacus and saying some nice things that she would holler back to Lacus later.

Kira, absorbed in his own work, didn't hear anything and continued, so she snuck off and sat at the wooden benches and tables in the garden and proceeded to chew her way through the work assigned for the next two hours.

Then she heard the breakfast bell from inside and slammed the QUINd shut before hurrying inside, where Kira joined her with Tori and the blue haro, till absently speaking in computer codes to Tori who replied something back she didn't quite understand.

"Morning!" a young secretary she recognised as Kira's lab assistant chirped at her.

Smiling at the boy, she greeted him as well, and then slipped into a seat which wasn't occupied by all the other PLANT ambassadors. Then she saw Athrun slip into the seat beside her and blushed furiously when he greeted her good morning, then because it would have been rude not to say anything while there was such happy conversation everywhere along the table, she said, "What do you want to do after breakfast?"

He chewed thoughtfully and swallowed, thinking 'kiss you silly', but calmly answered, "Discuss the military bilateral exercise ETERNITY has been informed to organise with the Supreme Commander of ORB's military. PLANT has hereby requested to bring forward to two months from now."

She had been busily shovelling her omelette into her mouth, but dropped her fork, leaving her knife in the other hand, and stared at him stupidly.

"What?' she cried, alarmed to say the very least.

"I didn't know that the exercise was going to be carried out so early!" she continued rapidly, thinking that Amagi, chief-in-charge of the exercise she had approved of a month ago, was not telling her information. She'd check back with him.

And he looked at her with insucrtable eyes and said evenly, "I was only informed by PLANT's Supreme Council's secretary at four in the morning that they wanted me to organise a meeting with ORB's Chairman while I was here in EA's territory. They want me to represent them to ask for permission for the ten-year exercise to be carried out earlier than expected. Of course, I need your permission first."

She stared and sputtered, "The plans have already been completed in advance, y-yes, and the troops in ORB are ready for the bilateral military-cooperation with ZAFT, so if I were to give the permission, Amagi would just give the green light, but..." and she trailed off and lifted her eyes away from his while her lips trembled and she suddenly looked pained.

"You know what speeding up the bilateral military co-operation would mean, don't you?" he said, already knowing that she had already personally finished the plans and made the relevant checks on ORB, ready to have the exercise PLANT wanted ZAFT to train in ORB at anytime at all.

She looked at him silently with wide eyes and shook her head, although she was already thinking wild thoughts with a sneaking suspicion that he was going to drop a bomb on her, and she was quite right when she heard what he had to say once he spoke again.

"Two months from now I'll be living in ORB as ETERNITY's chairman to supervise and train the ZAFT and ORB troops for the next ten years, that is, if nothing happens and I'm not recalled to PLANT. And if nothing goes wrong and the exercise proves successful in ten years' time, PLANT will request that the exercise is made long-term and I'll be working for PLANT but permanently stationed in ORB."

Cagalli dropped her knife with a clatter although the rest didn't notice because they were chattering a way too happily.

"Nooo, noooo, nooooooooo" she moaned, running her hands through her hair. He looked at her and wanted to say,"let me do that for you," but he kept his mouth shut.

"Yes," he stated calmly, picking up her knife and stuffing it back into her hand before returning his attention to the half-finished food.

When she had recovered from the shock sufficiently, she whispered, "And what if I chose not to accede to PLANT's request?"

He looked directly at her, coolly cut his grapefruit into half with his butter knife and said evenly, "Then I'll come to join you in ORB five months later as the original plan stated instead of two."

"Noooooooooo…" she groaned, shaking her head as if to convince herself he was lying.

"Yes," he said firmly, "Be it two months or five months or a decade later, I'll still come for you."

Cagalli looked down at her plate, lost in her thoughts amidst all the chatter and conversation around them, and when she looked up again, Athrun could see that she was terribly troubled and her eyes were pained shards of amber.

Then she cursed under her breath, stood up, and swiftly excused herself, and nobody heard her anyway, so she zoomed out of one of the exits.

Throwing down his napkin, Athrun excused himself too, which nobody heard too, and then he ran after her too.

Apparently, nobody listened much to others at the noisy breakfast table,which was a good thing anyhow.

She had disappeared by the time he ran outside, and he looked around but she wasn't anywhere. He knew she couldn't be any further than the area they were in now, and feeling terribly like a stalker, he crept over to Kira's garage-cum-lab where he thought Cagalli might and shot in.

The place was spick-and-span in spite of the truly frightening number of wires, computers and machines, because Kira had always made it his personal policy to be neat. Then he looked around the large room and gave up because he couldn't see her anywhere. So he left and passed by some thick bushes where he heard a scuffling noise and thought it might be the cat they had failed to punish the other day. Then he saw a pair of shoes sticking out very conspicuously like a sore thumb even though the thicket was successfully hiding Cagalli. So she had forgotten to hide her feet too.

Trying not to laugh and remaining in stealth mode, he knelt in his suit and peeked under the tall, dense thicket and saw a pair of amber eyes staring back at him, and he stared at her, then laughed eventually and grabbed her hand and hauled her out into the sunlight.

"Arrgh!" she cried, frustrated, and then ran over to the swings suspended by strong wires Kira had recycled as swing-ropes, promptly sitting down on it and kicking herself off.

Not knowing quite what to say next, he got onto one too and swung his weight forward.

"Why does it have to be like that?" she angrily yelled.

"What?" he asked calmly, bracing himself for a temper tantrum of hers. With any luck, she would calm down very soon which was typical of her temper.

"You and PLANT!" she cried while swinging furiously and refusing to look at him.

"What's wrong with me going over to be in ORB anyway?" he said, puzzled.

"I spent two years of my life trying to forget you, and then you have to appear, but I can take that because I have the rest of my life to try and forget you after seeing you for like, three stupid days, but if you come over for ten years and longer, then how am I supposed to forget you?" she cried in a rush, her expression miserable enough to break another person's heart other than his own.

"Don't forget then," he replied evenly, still swinging even though she had stopped.

She made a painful, mewling sound that made him think of a soldier he had strangled once when he had no more bullets left and his knife had been taken away. But when he heard her, he wanted to pull her into his arms and lock her there forever so she had no choice but to stay.

"Then how can I go on?" she asked him weakly.

He stopped his swing by placing his feet on the ground, skidding to a halt, and looked at her. Her hands were griping the swing's wires fiercely and she was hiding her eyes from him again with her long fringe that hid half her face when she looked down.

"Don't you understand?" he asked gently, "You can't, but neither can I."

She looked up at him, still griping the wires, prepared to fight and said very fiercely, "Why not?"

He didn't answer but just looked at her silently. She had asked him as if to challenge his claim, why they couldn't survive without each other.

But she knew why they both couldn't go on by trying to forget each other, and kept silent even as he said, "You know why, don't you?"

And he echoed her thoughts by whispering, "Because forgetting each other is quite impossible."

Cagalli averted her eyes from his intense green ones and said quietly, "I didn't know you thought so too."

He stared ahead and said very softly, "I was wrong not to do anything about it these two years just to prove that I could forget too. I failed. I'm sorry that I even tried."

Then he kicked himself off again and swung as high as he could possible go and when he was finally tired of the swing, he sprung into a flawless arc and leapt off in a perfect crouch while the swing was in midair. Then he offered a hand to her and she took it with her own small own, saying in a tiny voice he had to strain to hear, "Do you remember when I was on board the Archangel just before everyone left ORB for Messiah?"

He nodded, wondering which track she was heading on, and she continued shakily, "I smiled at Mwu because I knew that was what he needed to regain confidence to live on the Archangel without most of his memories. Then I hugged Murrue because that would tell her that I needed her to be safe and I knew nobody except me could give her the confidence she needed to be a captain and look at Mwu with the same eyes as she had once done.

I hugged Kira because that was the best way to tell him to come back safely, and I hugged Lacus because she cared for everyone but nobody cared for her enough, and when I got to you, I didn't know what to give you, because I thought I had nothing left which would be valuable to give to you."

Athrun closed his eyes, blinking back the prickling of tears, and when he opened his eyes, confident that he would not lose his composure, she had crumbled and was already sobbing that she wanted to be with him but had nothing to give him in exchange.

He swiftly pulled her into his arms, stroked her beautiful head softly and waited while she sobbed her heart out and basically ruined his suit, and then said quietly, "I embraced you first. Remember that for as long as you live."

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Author's notes:

I couldn't resist blaring to all those who have read this that this is one of my favourite chapters. Which meant that I listened to ENDLESS STORY for about five hours on repeat mode. And I'm still not sick of it totally yet, I can get to the bridge which I think is about the best part and I absolutely adore and then when it's over, I just switch. It's true, so be afraid, be very afraid.

People have been asking if ASUCAGA is going to be, and all I can say is, I'm not Fukuda. I don't start things and leave them in a mess very often. And rememeber that Truth still needs your support!


	17. Chapter 17

Disclaimer: I don't own GS/GSD and their characters. If I did, I'd have made Mia Campbell die before half the series was over because she was really tiresome. I wanted a complex character and they tried to make her one, but maybe thy overdid it and she became the shallow person she was portrayed to be. R&R&R, thanks.

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Chapter 17 

The day had passed so quickly he was down to his final afternoon with her. She had agreed to PLANT's request quite readily after the little argument they had in the garden and after he had held her for about ten minutes, just like that in the garden, but had wrangled some benefits for ORB through the agreement too. They both weren't pushovers even though the person negotiating with them was the person they had just been holding.

He was impressed with how shrewd she could be even when she was dealing with him, and he had bargained on the sum PLANT would allocate for ORB's cause in return for letting their soldiers train with ORB's soldiers in jungles that would move the ZAFT soldier's skills up by more than a few notches. She was tireless in fighting for better chances for ORB, and he too for PLANT, so it took up quite a fair bit of time he would have liked to spend with her in other ways.

The agreement had been finalised after a morning and half the afternoon's hard work and continuous contact with the PLANT secretary, and then she had requested to go back to the ORB embassy house to fetch some documents she wanted to check for errors in the military-exercise clause that didn't agree with his own copy's. So that closed another chance of having her to himself, and he was plagued with doubt. She hadn't said anything after she finally broke the embrace, she still refused to give no indication how she would react to him after that, and he was more miserable than ever.

But then she had come into his room and requested for him to send her back to the ORB houe clearly even though they knew she could have always called for her embassy to do it for her, and he was terribly overjoyed but tried not to show it. Around her, his feelings ran high and his emotion were like a yo-yo. He didn't mind though, not much anyway.

So Athrun sent Cagalli to ORB's embassy house where she asked him to hang around the area and let her change some clauses to suit the finalised version while he didn't waste his time waiting for her in the area where Goebbels would see him and promptly interrogate her.

He drove to the nearby town centre barely a few metres away from the ORB embassy, where the Coordinator engineers had teamed up with the EA Naturals' engineers and the team Kira headed to set up multiple giant screens across buildings to improve communications in the area. He parked his car and got off, but not before he slipped on his sunglasses to hide his face in case anyone recognised him. Dullindal had told him once that his eyes and hair colour had been a dead-giveaway when he had tried to be Alex Dino. Coupled with the fact that his father was one of the most famous Coordinators, and now he was one of them too, Athrun Zala was quite easily recognisable if he didn't take heed to hide it.

As he got out of the car, a man rushed past him, a dark-haired male who had to be only a few years older than him with a crazed expression on his face and the walk that made Athrun think of drunkards. He saw that the man was not right in the head but shrugged and pushed past, since he couldn't quite be bothered to start a scene and get himself exposed.

The male's face was quite striking, pale skin with wide-set eyes, and Athrun suddenly recognised him as Jun Thornier, and was quite startled that he had come all the way from America to Berlin after finding out he had not been recognised as a successful candidate for the relocation project. Maybe he wanted to complain or rant against the decision or something. More work for his secretary then, he thought haphazardly. He could have trailed Jun Thornier for a while, but he chose not too. He had better things to do than follow drunks around town.

So he walked around the streets a bit aimlessly, stopping only to look at some computer drivers when he noticed Kira's department's sign, combined with the ORB symbol on it. The gargantular screens his department had set up was flashing the news all over while people walked cross the roads, not quite unlike the own one he had seen back in PLANT when it was nationally broadcasted that Junius Seven was being blown into smithereens. They still made him feel a little uneasy, those large screens, but now, it was flashing a harmless advertisement of some perfumes Lacus had been asked to endorse. She didn't though, she said she didn't like the packaging.

Then Athrun thought of the ring, still in his pocket and made a promise to himself. Then he stopped at the pavement to look at the large screens, wondering if the news was going to report about the weather soon. Then as the pretty weather-reporter started chirping out the weather for the day, she was interrupted by the main news reporter with an announcement that was again, interrupted by a zapping signal that canelled the screen he was looking at and refocused it on blur surroundings.

As confused as all those around him, he stared, bewildered the blur colours on the screen, and the cars were zooming to a halt and people were all murmuring around him asking what was going on, and then he heard someone who he immediately recognised as Cagalli panting, magnified by the gigantic screens across thousands of buildings and a shaky voice screaming from behind her "It's all your fault!"

He was staring, transfixed in horror like all those around as they watched the interference clear and Jun Thornier griping the ORB chairman tightly with a gun pressed to her temple while she struggled to get free and panted as he half-strangled her in front of everyone. His arm was around her neck and he grasped a handfull of her blonde hair and yanked it, hard.

She gasped in pain but continued to strangle, unafraid of the gun he had pointed to her temple, because she was sure she could wriggle free in time. As they watched in terror, he thought for a minute that she would get free to, but then her captor snickered insanely and pressed her jaw down hard until she cried out. Jun Thornier had activated her office transmitter that she used for speeches and brought the scene of his attempted assassination to the whole country to see.

The secretary was helplessly standing in a corner, shaking, while her bodyguards were pointing guns at Thornier who was screaming something unintelligible, then he lookeddown then flipped his head up and giggled insanely. The bodyguards who had all their guns on the floor lest he really kill Cagalli like he had threatened were all tensed, but there was nothing they could do. Athrun wanted to rave and rant and scream for Thornier to get his filthy hands of her, but from where he was, everybody except Thornier wold hear him.

Athrun was staring in horror and hearing Thornier stammer, "I was smart wasn't I? I-I g-got the secretary t-to take me to t-the chairman by just p-pointing a gun at h-him a-and then I can k-kill the person who s-started it in the f-first place.

He couldn't take it any longer and burst into a mad sprint, shoving the key in and making the engine roar to life while the rest stared and some screamed in horror at the terrible scene unfolding before their eyes.

Thornier was telling the whole world that the relocation project was going to fail anyway, he had only volunteered because he wanted to go to PLANT and kill as many Coordinators as possible, and then he'd been rejected and he was going to kill the person who allowed Coordinators to live with Naturals in ORB in the first place and lied to everyone that they could live peacefully, and "T-that p-person is the ORB Chairman, o-of- course! But he's not h-here anymore, s-so I'll kill h-her i-instead!" he cackled stupidly, then he paused and looked strangley confused for a minute before his face morphed into a snarl, and he started squeezing the trigger at Cagalli who had shut her eyes and was visibly trembling.

Goebbels had burst into her office without knocking, and she had looked up, stunned, then the man who had held a gun behind her secretary made all her bodyguards drop their guns and put the gun at her temple before she could whip her own out of the drawer. She was pretty convinced then that she was going to be assassinated on national television on the screens her brother had developed and front of Athrun.

She didn't even know the man, but he was stammering and laughing and cackling about things she didn't understand, and it seemed like he would hold her there before killing her for along as eternity. She was held at gunpoint, and she could hardly breathe, but her mind was clear although she was trembling and her eyes were shut tightly. She had gotten her will ready at a young age anyway, and she was pretty sure that he would approve of her decision to giv-

"Drop that gun!"

And Cagalli's eyes flew open and she panted, half-fainting from the grip the man had around her throat, and her vision cleared from the blur of pain and tears and saw Athrun standing in the open doorway, crouching in the familiar stance with his gun pointed straight between the man's eyes. She struggled to call out to him, sure that he was in for the kill, she didn't want him to ki-

"N-no, I-I'll kill your g-girl i-if y-you don't d-drop y-your gun." Thornier choked out, shoving the barrel of his gun into her mouth now, and tears leaked out her eyes at the humiliation as she saw Athrun set his mouth in a grim line and slowly crouch down and bend, stretching out his right hand slowly to place down the gun on the floor. Just to prove his point, Thornier took the gun away but fired it into her arm and she watched her white shirt become stained in red blood while she fought to keep sane from the pain, then she felt the gun being shoved into her mouth again and wanted to vomit.

And then the man was twisting her arm backwards and she heard a sickening crack and screamed outright in pain as she felt her arm break.

Her bodyguards were panting now, and the youngest one, a female black-belt she was often affectionate towards, was openly sobbing in front of millions on national television and pleading for him to let the chairman go,it wasn't her fault and they didn't know what he wanted away.

Athrun was crouching down and not looking up, and Thornier was saying very childishly before he held malice in his face, "W-who the h-hell are y-you anyway?"

Cagalli could hear Athrun chuckle a low, sarcastic laugh even though she knew she was going to suffocate very soon, and he said, "How did you know she was my girl, Thornier?"

Thornier, was that the man's name? He hadn't realised that Athrun knew his name and was proudly stammering, half-crazed, that he had trailed them everywhere to the beach and ran off when she had aimed a gun at the bush he was spying at them from. Thornier was cakling again and stroking her arm almost what onewould call gently and pressing his fingers, stained with her blood, against her cheek and she felt sick.

She wasn't some princess in a tower though. She knew her bodyguards and her brother, Lacus and Athrun would avenge her if anything happened, and she knew she would feel irritated that she wasn't able to ask the idiot strangling her now why he was trying to kill her when she didn't even know him. Her arm was bleeding and she wanted to ask him to hurry up and finish her off if her wanted to murder her at all.

She half-sighed, feeling the dull throb in her broken arm, wondering why she hadn't fired, and more tears leaked out of the corner of her eyes as he pushed the gun hard into the roof of her mouth. Her lips were bleeding, and she wanted to tell Athrun that she was sorry she hadn't fired the gun then and killed the lunatic who was pointing the gun at h-

And she forced her eyes open and looked in the nick of time to see Athrun, a split-second before still crouching on the floor with his face down, almost as if he was bowing and kneeling on one knee to Thornier, whip out a glinting knife below his long pants and from his shoe, spring up and ricochet forward in a ungodly flash of speed, his gun still on the floor, but the knife in his hand.

Then suddenly, she was seeing the knife handle, not the blade, no, the handle, sticking out of her captive's chest and the gun sliding out of her mouth, and the spray of warm blood on the back of her neck and her lips as Athrun calmly twisted and pulled the knife out of the unconscious man's chest and saying that the average ZAFT soldier was trained not only in using a gun, but also a knife.

Thornier collapsed, letting go of her and the sudden air that rushed into her nostrils made her more dizzy than ever, and she fell forward but he caught her and dropped his knife on the floor, catching her neatly in an embrace as the youngest bodyguard lead the rest in a whooping cheer while all over the country, people in front of the giant screens her brother had set up cheered, screamed in triumph and hugged strangers they had never talked to before in sheer joy.

When she woke, Cagalli was lying in a white room and staring at a white ceiling and heard his voice saying very quietly but lovingly, "How do you feel?"

And she refocused her eyes on him, smiled and said as cheerfully as she could muster, "Like crap."

Then she felt his lips on hers and her brother and Lacus chuckling from somewhere, and she pushed him off and sat up and gasped in pain as the pain shot up her arm and left her seeing flashes of white light.

Kira had appeared in front of her now and was saying very sincerely, "I'm glad Athrun was around."

Lacus was standing next to him and smiling gently at her, and that was enough to dull the pain. She knew why the coordinators loved her, she was like balm for wounds.

She bit back a cry of pain as her arm trembled in its cast and fought to smile, then when she was sure her voice would not tremble, she looked at the three of them and wisecracked, "At least it's my left arm, so I can till write and someone in my office can type out my work after that."

Cagalli looked up at them smilingly then sobered when she aw their expressions and asked, "Where is he now?"

Athrun grimly smiled back and said, 'In custody. I didn't aim for his heart."

Kira was clearing his throat and leaving the room with Lacus in tow, and Athrun was left there, silently sitting at her side before she spoke again.

"Why not?" she asked, a little curious, because she had been so sure he was in for the kill when he had burst in initially.

"Because I knew you wouldn't approve if I wanted to kill the lunatic." He replied calmly.

She ignored what he had said because she sensed what he might have to say next would make her feel awkward, and switched her question, because silence would have been awkward too, questioning, "How did you know who he was?"

So he told her about Thornier background and his mental breakdown and she stared at a particular spot on the bed sheet, a little relieved that he held no true grudge against her but still a little sorry that she hadn't been able to talk to him and try to help him before he had been taken away.

Athrun was calling her, and she looked up at him, still sitting upright, although she slouched so her arm wouldn't hurt so much. He fluffed the pillows expertly then made her rest on them properly before continuing to say, "We're in a bad shape now though."

Cagalli glanced at his serious expression and sensed something was bowing up behind the calm exterior he was showing and said softly, "What do you mean?"

He glanced away, purposely avoiding her eyes and responded "The people have questioned what he was talking about, although none of them have made any brouhaha on the fact that I stabbed him publicly."

She stared at him, saying "What did he say? I didn't quite hear then," and snorted because it was obvious she couldn't concentrate on what he was saying when he had a gun stuffed up the roof of her mouth.

Athrun sighed and took out an apple he had peeled and cut, and she wondered if he had used the same knife he had stabbed Thornier with to peel the apple and tried not to think about it more.

"It was what he revealed about both of us, and he told a million people on national television that we were together alone on a remote beach. Now, my secretary tells me there are a thousand or so organisations which have demanded an explanation for such inexplicable behaviour and want us to appear on an interview to explain what was going on that night."

Enraged, she screeched, "Those idiots!" and then her arm hurt again and she gasped in pain.

"Actually," he continued, re-fluffing her pillows just for the sake of it, "It isn't that bad. We can always use the fact that Thornier is a crazed lunatic and tell the people that your body guards were hidden nearby but Thornier didn't see them that night."

She looked at him and was about to agree that they could arrange that if she first instructed her bodyguards to cover them, but saw he was still looking troubled.

"That isn't what is troubling you, is it?" she questioned him gently.

"No," he said hesitantly, "but it's my fault you're lying here with your arm broken in this place now."

Her eyes widened and she spluttered in disbelief, "Don't be ridiculous! How could it be your fault anyway? That's like saying I'm in India like at this instant!"

She might have gone on, except that he leaned forward and her breath caught when he moved so close to her she thought he was going to kiss her to make her shut up a bit.

But Athrun cut her off by pressing a finger to her lips and he said morosely, "He brushed past me when I got out of the car, and I knew he was crazy but didn't stop him, and that was how he got a chance to hurt you. And now we're stuck in thi-"

It was her turn to cut him off now, and she threw her one good arm around him in a weird caricature of a hug and murmured that it would never be his fault that he had saved her. His heart was bitter that he had let her get hurt, and he had almost lost control in his rage when he had seen the lunatic trying to kill her, but her loopy embrace made him want to thank the lunatic for every opportunity he had given Athrun.

But she had to ruin the moment by moving away at the most crucial moment, and she didn't notice the indignant expression he couldn't hide and asked, "The knife you used to cut the apple, was it the same as the one you used to stab him?"

He felt like teasing her, so he nodded, saying, "I washed it well though", and she gasped in horror and disgust, because she had eaten a slice of the apple, staring at him with large eyes until he couldn't maintain the serious poker expression he had on. And then he laughed and swooped down to kiss her over and over again, knowing fully well that her one good hand was holding an apple and she couldn't push him away this time.

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Author's note:

Someone told me I should release one chapter a week to get more reviews,which is quite true. If you put one chapter there, people will comment on that one chapter. But if you put five there, they will still only comment on it like they would for one chapter which can be a bit of a short-change no? Although all the chapters are there in the document manager, they are waiting to be released.

I'm going to tell you people something, I wrote this for a joke, just after the exams which I studied like a lunatic for, it was a joke at first but it became a full-blown kinda project for me, so I really appreciate the reviews and everything you have done so far. Truth will continue!

PS: to those who PMed me asking if anything sexual was going on or would happen, please don't do ask me that although I'm grateful for your support in this and love the reviews so far. I'm underaged!


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

He had received a confirmation from PLANT's secretary that his stay would be extended to fit the interview PLANT had decided was necessary for the ETERNITY chairman to explain himself properly. There were already conspiracy theories going on that he had tried to kill the ORB chairman on the night when they had allegedly been alone on the beach, and PLANT felt a need to quell the rumours once and for all. Athrun knew he had their complete trust, but they needed him to have the trust of the whole world too.

It would be a wise decision not to reveal more than to a certain degree at that stage, although he wanted to kiss her on national television and tell the rest to back off. But PLANT's Supreme Council would kill him and she would dig himout and kill him again. She just wasn't ready to make a decision, and as painful as it felt, Athrun just had to accept that.

In the next five days, he was plied with arrangements he had to work out while he remained in the embassy house EA had provided him, and Athrun knew that Cagalli was still in the midst of recuperating in the hospital but doggedly doing her tasks manually with a pencil and paper to work out the various issues. She had a calculator he had given her next to her and used it very well, especially since she was doing complicated sums in the billions with a pencil and paper and only one arm.

He was aware that she had been given a special drug that would make her arm's broken bones heal faster than the five weeks it was estimated it to take, so she would be up and running in a week, although her arm would be numb and pretty much useless for the next two weeks. As far as he could see, the drug wasn't keeping from working like a cow while in the hospital where she was showered with flowers from people she scarcely knew everyday. Although he had been tempted to get her some, Athrun didn't bother sending flowers. He knew she wasn't particularly fond of them anyway, although she did appreciate the goodwill and care the people showered on her.

And she knew about the scandal that was building up and going to erupt, of course. Even if she was going to lie there all day, she knew what was going on outside the room she had been confined in.There were blatant rumours that he had arranged the assassination but when that had failed, he had allegedly gotten the hit man to step down, but the hit man had gone ahead and he had been forced to step in himself after he had gotten cold feet. Nonsense like that, but she understood some of their suspicions when she had thought of the situation from their perspectives. How else would he have appeared so promptly on the scene to stop the hit man from killing the ORB Chairman?

Another theory Rainie, the seventeen year old bodyguard had told her of while they ate lunch together (Cagalli's orders), was that the ETERNITY chairman had arranged for a hit man to come in but had gotten cold feet at the last minute and silenced the hit man just in time before he revealed too much on national television.

And then PLANT had requested for the ORB chairman and the ETERNITY chairman to appear on an exclusive interview on National Television to e things sorted out once and for all. He wasn't quite keen to make an appearance to the whole world, and would have been happy to refuse immediately, but PLANT had ordered him to do so. More importantly,Cagalli had agreed and he had to for her sake.

So he had been ordered put on his official maroon suit and appear with ORB's Chairman on an internationall-viewed interview, and now, Athrun flipped on his black jacket in the dressing room he was sitting in now, combed his hair properly and got himself ready for the interview by EA primetime. Athrun stepped out of the room as his secretary called out to him to powder his face. He snorted and ignored her, pushing his way out of her room and moving to Cagalli's dressing room where her bodyguards were standing at attention.

When they saw him coming towards them, some stiffened, swayed by the conspiracy theories flying everywhere, but most of them brightened up, rushed forward and shook his hand, pumping it so vigorously he felt slightly faint. The youngest, (Rainie, was it?) squealed and thumped his back so hard, he knew why she had been chosen as a bodyguard even at such a tender age- seventeen.

They allowed him to go in eventually, and he sighed in relief, since his hand felt like it was going to drop off. The seventeen year old bodyguard led him in herself, and he noticed that she had the kind of dark hair and alert eyes that reminded him a little of Shiho, although she was obviously not anything like the calm,collected test-pilot Yzak was obssessed with. She excitedly told him to turn left into the next door, before turning around and trotting away like a puppy and disappearing through the door they had just walked in from.

He paused at the door and heard Cagalli rehearsing her lines in different ways and a long sigh, and then he knocked and when she answered clearly, "Come in," he marched right in without a second thought.

Cagalli was sitting in front of the vanity and looking down in her lap, searching for something in a bag again and she didn't see who it was that had come in.

Without looking up, she said clearly over her shoulder, "Could you pass me the water next to you, Goebbels?"

He took the water and silently crossed over and stood behind her.

She looked up to reach for the water with her right hand and saw him in the mirror, startled at who she saw and then she relaxed and smiled at his reflection and commented with a touch of approval in her voice, "You look spiffy."

"Thanks," he said evenly, "You too."

Then he realised that girls didn't like their attire being called spiffy, maybe words like, 'pretty' or 'nice' should have been used, but she didn't seem to really care anyway.

Cagalli had been assigned a dark, professional looking navy blue dress with sleeves that came to her elbows and the hemline of the skirt went down to her knees. It had a slight military edge which served as an unspoken reminder of who she was, and obviously she had approved of it, which made it questionable how feminine she would really look in it, but she still looked stunning with some make-up and simple silver earrings.

He wasn't too keen on the fact that the neckline wasn't up to her throat like he had hoped, but he realised he was just being a jealous prig. Even goody-two-shoes people like Lacus didn't wear necklines that high.

With some satisfaction, he spotted the black string around her neck even though the shell was probably hidden in the folds of the dress.

He then glanced at her freshly brushed hair with its pretty leaf-shaped clips and commented, "Your hair's pretty well done, considering that you have only one working arm."

She saw him looking at her reflection and laughed.

"No," she said cheerfully, "I enlisted the help of Rainie. She's been helping me to do my hair ever since I came to office and Mana retired."

"Rain-ie, was it?" he said, trying to remember her name that Cagalli had mentioned.

"Yes, she's young but very talented where it comes to defence and attacks and the whole works, oh, but hairdressing too. These clips are hers; she brought the whole collection along. I didn't approve of the flashy ones she wanted to use, so she just gave up and chose some at random" Cagalli said, absently reaching up to feel the clips in her hair, but carefully so that she wouldn't mess up the hair.

"Oh," was all he could say.

"Are you ready for the interview?" she asked abruptly, swallowing a few different pills and some water.

"As ready as I'll ever be," he said dryly while she snorted, then he asked, "How's the arm anyway?"

Cagalli chuckled and lifted it up slowly, as if it didn't quite belong to her even though it was attached.

"Rainie had to stuff it the sleeve for me, but I think it's making progress although I can't feel anything in there."

Then Rainie knocked and bounced in, not quite unlike a haro, and she put some flowers on Cagalli's table, chirping, "The news station sent this to both of you. Chairman Zala, I was asked to pass this to you, I hope you like daffodils!"

And she proceeded to present the most ridiculous bunch of yellow flowers he had ever seen to him, and then she beamed and scurried off. He immediately placed the flowers down on her already crowded table and said hastily, "You can have these."

Cagalli was chuckling and standing up, placing her weight on one side where her good arm could support her, offering to him, "Let's go to the waiting room shall we? And I can loan you Rainie if you like."

He waved away the offer she had made in jest, then came and stood next to her after he had opened the door for her. As she walked past him, he noted that they were almost the same height now, because she was wearing heels that he would hate to get stepped on. The heels were probably some kind of weapon, he reflected, the four-inch kind so steep you could use as a knife or stake to mash someone's toes into the ground as a bloody pulp and then scoop it as mashed potato for a snack.

As the bodyguards directed them into the waiting room, the host for the night, a popular regular at the news broadcast hurried past them and grinned, adjusting his tie. He would grill them tonight that they were pretty sure of. The host was known for his traps and tricky questions when he dealt with interviews, and Athrun knew he had to watch for both their backs. PLANT had warned him to anyway, and he had to comply didn't he?

"Good luck for later!" he cried as he moved to his dressing room quickly to get ready.

"We're going to need it," Athrun thought dully as he sat down on a comfortable looking chair while Cagalli's bodyguards closed the door and waited outside for the signal to come.

They remained in silence, although Cagalli repeatedly mouthed something over and over again, probably her prepared responses for the night's interview. He was sure Kira and Lacus were curled up at home eating popcorn and watching them as entertainment for the night. Athrun felt ridiculous about the whole issue, but he was well aware that if they didn't get it right that night, the matter would always be simmering below the surface.

So he stood up calmly when the signal came, helped her up, and they proceeded to enter the stage where bright stage lights made them flinch a little, while thousands in the audience stood up and applauded wildly.

The host was cordially inviting to sit down, and they both took their seats on the same sofa, unconsciously sitting next to each other even though there was a separate couch at the other end of the stage, quite similar to the one the host was seated in now.

A collective murmur ran through the audience at their proximity, but he ignored it and smiled genially at the camera with Cagalli. He could imagine Kira spitting out his popcorn and gasping for air as he laughed his head off with Lacus, and quickly had to control his facial muscles to prevent the scowl he felt from appearing.

"So Chairman Atha," the host was saying, business-like.

"Please call me Cagalli," she was saying quickly, and the audience immediately warmed up. It was a smart move indeed. He was sure Goebbels hadn't taught her that though. Being personal with others was something that came naturally to her.

"We are here tonight to discuss the cause of your arm injury, and while we are at it, have you recovered well?" the host was saying winsomely.

"Yes," she was saying warmly, "but if Athrun here hadn't been around to protect me, I might not even have had the chance to recover, and for that I'm thankful to him."

The murmurs were going on again, she had called him by his first name, and the obvious familiarity she showed while using it made the audience shift a little.

"Chairman Zala," the host was addressing him, "How did you plan to help Miss Cagalli in so quick a time?"

At tricky question he had known was going to crop up. If he slipped, the whole world would pounce on him, and the cordial atmosphere had suddenly became a tense one. He wasn't quite as popular with the audience as Cagalli, well, he'd have to fix that.

"Please, call me Athrun," he replied evenly, "On the day the assassination was attempted, I had sent Ms Atha to the ORB embassy house as a personal favour, since she wanted to collect some documents. I had then gone to the nearby town centre where I watched with the rest how the assassination had almost taken place."

He paused, not giving too much information so the curiosity would be aroused, and secretly glanced at her fro the corner of his eye and saw her staring evenly ahead.

The host was exclaiming, "Mr Zala, you sent her personally to the house she was staying at temporarily?"

"That's correct," he answered, "and then I waited in the town square that was only a few metres away while she collected her documents."

"Why, you must have been close enough to her to get to the embassy house so quickly then!" the host was slyly saying.

Another trick. "Yes," Athrun said charmingly, "because the house was close enough and I sped to get there. Hence, I'm admittedly guilty of speeding."

And he smiled at the audience and heard them roaring in laughter, feeling a wave of relief sweep over him, because now he had them on his side.

"So you drove there in a few minutes as you said, and then you had your own gun?" the host was questioning.

"That's correct. I carry my own gun with me that is authorised by PLANT's Supreme Council that gives license to specified members of PLANT's council to carry weapons for self-defence since I have no bodyguards of my own."

"And you have proven you don't need them!" the host couldn't help bursting out excitedly, then he remembered he was supposedly playing the villain's role of hard knocks and interrogation, then coughed and said seriously, "What were you thinking when you rushed to Miss Atha's office?"

He stared ahead at the winking cameras and said carefully, his expression guarded, "I knew I could do something about the situation there and then in the town square. I had seen Junius Seven blown from its orbit on National television in the town square in PLANT when I was thirteen, so I couldn't stand there and see another person I cared about die in front of everyone."

A gasp was heard in its entirety from the audience. There. He had said it and used his trump card- status as a war hero.

The host was saying apologetically, " I'm sorry sir, I didn't' mean to,' and he cut off the man simply, "Don't worry about it."

He didn't need their sympathy. He just needed this to get over and done with as soon as possible.

The host was turning back to Cagalli and asking her, "Did you know Mr Zala here, in his words, 'cared about' you?"

She was prepared for that too, she smiled at the camera briefly then turned back to the host and answered, "Of course. He and I are friends, and if I were in position and about to see a dear friend die, I wouldn't stand there watching helplessly while knowing I could do something about it, would I?"

Cagalli had thrown the question back at the host and he was answering quickly, ' I certainly wouldn't, Miss Atha."

"Hence, I gather that Mr Zala and Miss Atha were on such good terms that you were at the beach late at night?"

Athrun chose to answer the question and fielded it, using charm he had learnt would lighten the tenseness that was shooting through the room again.

"Late at night doesn't constitute of seven pm after dinner, does it?" he said slyly.

The audience was laughing again, and Cagalli had joined in too, saying over the din, "I asked him to take me to the beach to pick a seashell for a little entertainment of my own.

And she reached for the black string and pulled out the shell he had tied around her neck, although she didn't say that of course, and the audience was nodding in understanding as the shell glinted in the light and the camera zoomed in on it.

Athrun imagined that Kira had gone into the kitchen to fetch more popcorn by now.

"Did you plan to stab the man, Mr Zala?"

"Yes. The gun I brought in was a decoy, which I had tried to use as a trick. Obviously it worked. I had considered throwing the knife at him since the range was accurate enough for me, but I was afraid he might react fast enough to use Cagalli as a human shield and she would get injured by my knife if I threw it. If I leapt at him, I would have enough time to react and change the direction the knife was coming in if if he reacted at all."

The audience was gasping as one now, and some even stood up and shouted, "Brilliant! Good for you!"

He had told the truth and that kept the situation together. Had he lied and said it was on the spur of the moment, he would not be sure they would support him.

Then there was some laughter at the spontaneity even though the subject had been grim, and the atmosphere was less tense.

He had known the trap would be set. They wanted to egg him into seeming like a dangerous person to have around. But by explaining his course of actions, the audience would be on his side, and then the host would have to retreat a bit.

"So exactly what happened that day, Miss Atha?" the host was asking curiously.

"When Jun Thornier burst into my office as I was collecting some documents, he had already used my secretary as his first hostage after moving past all the security in the house, and he forced my guards to surrender their weapons after he had gotten me as a hostage. It was the speed at which he charged in unannounced that caught me off guards, and when I was held there, he was suffocating me, and in that state, I couldn't think very clearly," Cagalli explained briefly.

The host was nodding eagerly, so she continued, well aware that some in the audience had their hands near their mouth in shock.

"Then he pulled me in front of the transmitter the office had for the leaders to give speeches, but thankfully Athrun stepped right in to save me form the sticky situation."

The host was asking now, "What was running through your mind when you saw the chairman there?"

She glanced at Athrun and saw that he was listening intently although his face was inscrutable, and answered, "I was glad to see him, although I was quite sure that I was going to die then. When I saw him put down his gun as Thornier instructed, I never expected him to still get me out of the pinch."

The audience was cheering and applauding, on their feet now, and Athrun smiled a genuine smile at them before fielding the next question.

"Miss Atha, you are affectionately known, along with Miss Lacus Clyne, as a princess of peace, although you are thought to be the less lady-like one, even though you manage to appear like a princess at all events we've seen you at. What do you think of this popular opinion?"

She chortled and answered, "It was true that I was preparing to take the gun out of my drawer in self-defence, and when he held me hostage, I had thought of the next few steps I could possible carry out to throw him off. I suppose that wouldn't be what you consider princess-like, would it? I have to say I wouldn't, but in the end, I had my knight in shining armour, didn't I?"

The audience was applauding instantly; delighted at her apparent warmth and ability to poke fun at herself, and Athrun knew they loved her for it.

"And you say that you both are good friends, but the populace wants to know, how really close are both of you?" the host said conspiratorially while the audience immediately quietened down and listened to the juicy news.

He had a few options now. He could do the unthinkable and shout that he was ready to eat his Infinite Justice Gundam for her if she wanted him to, or he could use the phrase 'we're just friends' that had been reused a million times already. Nobody would believe him of course, not with such a clichéd response.

Or he could also tell them that he was ready to kidnap her and carry her on his back to PLANT across deep space if he couldn't wait two months to go to ORB to see her again, or he could also say that the question was irrelevant for the night.

He could choose to say that he was ready to do anything if it could force her to say she would be with him, or he could reply that the interviewer was obviously crossing a dangerous boundary just to scare the git a little. Or he could kiss her in front of the millions who were watching and have her slap him in front of the same millions, which he didn't mind as long as he got a good kiss out of it, or he could change the topic as smoothly as possible until the audience realised it only an hour later.

So he looked at the host and said, "As close as I would possibly like."

It was a suitably vague answer and the host immediately recognised it as a warning and changed the topic quickly.

"So you used to be a former redcoat, Mr Zala?" he was saying respectfully.

"Yes. I joined ZAFT seven years ago when I was thirteen," he said dispassionately, not caring to elaborate. Let them do the Google search if they wanted to, he wasn't about to start telling his life story to strangers.

"So you said that day that the average soldier could use both a knife and gun, didn't you?' the host continued energetically, quite forgetting that he was supposed to be tough-talking and not a fan boy of ETERNITY's chairman.

"Yes, although I didn't quite really think of saying that, it was more like a flippant comment that day," Athrun answered quite truthfully.

"Dude, it became one of the best quotes of the century!" shouted someone in the audience, and the rest started cheering and quoting what he had said that day, although he really couldn't remember what it was.

"Ms.Atha, do you remember what he said?" the host was shouting over the din.

"No," she said slowly, "because I had fainted by then, I think."

At the back of his mind, he was wondering whether it was some kind of trick question, because the night's grilling questions had suddenly become opportunities to glorify himself and Cagalli.

The audience was shouting that they'd refresh her memory if she'd like them to, and she actually had to get up and shake the hands of those in the front row that were holding out their hands eagerly.

"Could you demonstrate some moves for us, please? We could get a whole new perspective of self-defence from someone such as yourself, and the stage is big enough for you to show us something!" the host beamed.

He then stood up and led the audience to their feet where they chanted loudly while clapping, "Do it! Do it! Do it!"

Athrun was stumped. The night of the grilling interview which had so many questions designed to trap them and put them in a spot had morphed very suddenly to a comedy. He could see Kira rolling around with mirth and throwing popcorn all over the carpet in front of the television. He vaguely wondered what Lacus would say.

"Go on, give us something more to worship you, Chairman Zala!" someone shouted in the audience.

He snorted on national television and looked at Cagalli who was laughing openly, probably at him. Joy.

The host as asking her if she could ask one of her bodyguards who were standing at the side to participate too, and she was smiling at the host in such a way that his breath away was taken away when the smile wasn't even directed at him.

'Rainie!" she called above the audience's applause, "Do us a favour there!"

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Author's note:

Alright, Merry Christmas people. Give me the nicest present ever, a review for every chapter you've read so far!

For those who have bothered reading so far, I once said to my friends that I didn't care about the reviews since this was supposed to be a joke anyway, but damn, I'm actually starting to care!

Therefore, R&R&R people,thank you!


	19. Chapter 19

Disclaimer: I don't own GS/GSD, you know the works already.

I want to apologise for being such a lousy fanfic-user, I didn't know how to enable the anonymous reviews until about five minutes ago. So those who have been reading but couldn't submit reviews, I'm really sorry about that. Well you know you can submit reviews now, so go right ahead even if you don't own a persoanl account, yay! So as per usual, R&R&R! Thank you!

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Chapter 19 

The petite girl proudly marched onto stage, clad in the customary tie and suit attire that bodyguards from ORB wore as uniforms; her long dark hair neatly tied in a pony tail and looped through to keep it from being a hindrance. Athrun looked at her, automatically sizing her up as he did to his opponents and thought for a minute that she would be a pushover.

Rainie, whatever her name was, had a very tiny frame that looked as if a wind could easily blow it over without it being the monsoon type. She had bright eyes and strong features, for sure, but her nose was the button sort that made her look very young, and she was already very young to begin with. He was sure the fight would be over and done with in a few minutes, and he wondered why Cagalli had asked especially for someone when she herself, knew what Athrun was capable of in a fight.

"This is Rainie," Cagalli was saying to the audience which was pointing in disbelief at the young girl who was called to duel with him, "She's to be seventeen this year and a bodyguard I trust with my life."

At least he knew he wasn't being an arrogant prick, even the general populace was gasping when Cagalli said this, obviously in doubt of her fighting abilities, especially since they all could identify her as the bodyguard who had wept on national television as Cagalli was almost assasinated while her bodyguards watched helplessly with all their weapons at their feet.

But they were applauding furiously again, and Athrun had to sportingly smile and stand up, straightening his jacket as he rotated his shoulders a little to warm up.

A few girls screamed in appreciation and he wanted to die of embarrassment when Cagalli grinned at him too. He had tensed up alreayd, he didn't bother returning the smile and only looked at Rainie with blank eyes so she couldn't read what he was thinking about.

The whole audience was watching, rapt with attention as they took centre across the large stage, watched by Cagalli and the host on one side, and thousands of viewers on the other.

Athrun's brain shifted into another mode altogether, and he raked his eyes over Rainie who was standing still but had clenched her fists. Then they stared at each other with intense eyes and Rainie suddenly leapt at him like a leopard, with her fist like lightning towards the area between his eyes, but he moved quickly and even more fluidly than the girl and did a swift duck, swinging his leg forward and attempting to trip her from her knees.

But the girl clearly had a surprising, if not incredible amount of potential, she had predicted his move almost instantaneously and had sprung with much agility into the air and then, she did a perfect back flip before using the wall as a springboard to launch herself at him, her fists clenched as hard as rock. He blocked that too, then spun himself to gain momentum and aimed a deadly kick at her which she couldn't block in time.

She crouched low to recover, then whirled herself round like a human torpedo with kicks so fast he could barely see them. He was glad she didn't' have a knife in her hands, she'd become a demon then.

He actually got hit by a few of the kicks that he tried to block, because she was too fast for him to avoid contact although he blocked most of them quite easily. He countered by leaping sideways and pulling a leg forward so she would trip, and she did, but she used the other free leg to propel herself backwards to stand on one foot with the other in a perfect line above her waist like the ballerinas he had watched at a performance before. She moved insanely, and he had to give her credit for that.

She charged towards him again with a snarl, but he was ready for her too, although he couldn't quite do the acrobatic-stunts she had proven were her best form of attack, and he firmly grasped her arms while she hurtled like a bullet towards him and flipped her backwards, making use of her petite size to fling her away from him like a mere cloth doll after she managed to avoid some punches he threw at her by twisting rapidly.

But she caught hold of his arm and actually shot under him and flipped him cleanly over her shoulder even though his bulk was probably twice of hers. He grunted in surprise but broke his fall by curling up into a ball and rolling over to regain his balance, and then he charged towards her with more speed than she had ever seen and made a feint-punch for her stomach while she leapt to the side he had predicted she would, and then he successfully caught her and slammed her onto the floor, not witholding anything this time. If he did, he would have made the same mistake as he had before of underestimating the girl Cagalli was willing to put her life at stake for.

The audience was shouting and cheering, but he couldn't hear anything. The host had told him earlier that there weren't this many people in the audience usually where politicians were concerned, unless the guests were pop stars for that particular interview. Well, Cagalli and him would have been popstars if their status were to be judged by the audience that day, the thought grimly.

Then she actually cart wheeled in the air to regain her balance when he picked her up and flung her again, and then she used the exact move he had done on her, trip him.

He sprung backwards, not quite in the precise back flip she had executed effortlessly, but he executed a flawless crouch and leapt above her head while using her shoulders as a pivot, and before she could recover from the quick assault, he pushed her from the back so she fell forward on her face, butit wouldn't hurt her too much. Besides, the earlier fall she had sustained earlier would be causing her some form of injury by now. It was clear by then when she moaned a little in pain and shook her head, signalling that she had lost.

Then it was over and it was obvious that he had won, although the girl had impressed him and the audience beyond any form of doubt.

He helped her to her feet and they shook hands while the audience and the host were on their feet cheering like crazy and Cagalli, still seated, was smiling at Rainie who was bashfully taking his hands and saying over the din, "Teach me that leap!"

Then the host was getting a signal from and shouted excitedly, "And that's the end of EA Primetime! Goodnight!"

And the cameras stopped winking and Cagalli and him were being bombarded with flowers form the audience. Rainie and the other bodyguards ran to pick them up, maybe to check if they had some poison in them or something for security measures, but he quickly followed Cagalli backstage, eager to escape the explosion of noise and colours since the audience were fixated on them the way they would be if they were pop stars. It was frightening him, so he quickly made himself scarce.

When he got to her dressing room, Rainie brought him in again, but not before requesting for his autograph to give to her mother and auntie and her grandmother. Some for her father's co-workers would be good too, she said.

"Frightening," he thought," Truly frightening.'

Although he knew it could be potentially dangerous if he were to kept being seen with her or if Rainie didn't know how to keep her mouth shut, he still had to see Cagalli.

She was waiting for him in the dressing room where she was struggling to put on a coat because it was getting chilly with the gauzy material she was wearing. He smiled and slipped a hand around her waist and guided Cagalli's arm into the sleeve where he could see it was behaving like some lifeless piece of rubber.

"We did well today, didn't we?" she was saying, not seeming to be uncomfortable about the hand he had around her waist.

He nodded and said seriously, "I'll be leaving in five hours' time for PLANT."

She looked away and said morosely, "I know. I'll be leaving about the same time too to go back to ORB and then we'll..."

And she trailed off and turned away from him because she didn't know how to continue, but he drew in a deep breath and brought his arms steadily around her from the back to lock her in an embrace from behind. He could feel her warmth ebbing into his arms and detected her scent, and she settled into his arms almost in a mandatory way, but then she suddenly recoiled and pushed him away.

Bewildered, he opened his mouth to speak but she hastily called for Rainie, who immediately appeared. He wondered if her presence was a safeguard for Cagalli against him, but a minute later, Cagalli instructed her that she would be leaving with the chairman to go back to the PLANT embassy house Lacus Clyne lived in, and she would meet them at the ORB embassy house in time for the shuttle to bring her back to ORB. Rainie wasn't as clueless as he thought she would be, she actually stared at him for a longer than what was necessary and he could feel the intensity of her gaze, it was like a warning in itself, but then she bowed and disappeared.

As they drove away from the broadcast station into the night, she was very silent even though Athrun did take a few stabs at conversation, so he gave up a while and concentrated on driving.

Then she suddenly came out of her silence and started talking.

"Was Rainie a good fighter?" she abruptly asked.

He nodded as he turned into the intermediate road that would eventually bring them back, then said, "If she continues to train hard, she'll be one of the finest fighters I can ever hope to see."

Cagalli was laughing as she heard him seriously give his breakdown of the girl, and replied, "I knew that when I saw her as a fifteen-year old."

Surprised that she allowed such a young girl to take risks with her own life, he asked, "Why did you take her at such a young age?"

She was quiet for a while, and then said thoughtfully, "I wasn't too keen on taking her first when she applied even though I was impressed, but she lives for excitement, you know, and she finished her university education when she was fourteen. Although her parents knew she was a child prodigy, they were aware that she needed to have her way and do something that kept her active. So when she appealed to me as a little more than a child, I took her I, although I kept trying to keep her busy with other things until she finally stormed into my office and demanded that she be allowed to do her job properly. So I accepted her in the end."

"Is she a coordinator?" he asked, interested in the girl's fascinating background.

"No," Cagalli replied quietly, "She's an Extended."

"What?" he said in disbelief "wasn't the last of the final generation of Extendeds Sting Oakley?"

"No," she said, shaking her head, "There were dozens of them hidden from the public's eyes and living in homes which supported the Blue Cosmos.

Rainie was in one of them until they started dying out when Blue Cosmos decided right in the middle of the second war that the existing Extended fighter pilots were adequate and pulled out of the project. So there weren't enough drugs and facilities to keep the children alive and she had to be sent into some Blue Cosmos supporter's house to live under a cover.

She ran way from the home she had been placed in with some others, and became the only one who survived other than two others whose names she cannot remember, only their faces. The people who adopted her from the shelter she was later placed at were just an old couple who were lonely without children they had lost in the war."

He listened in painful silence then asked, "How did she survive without the drugs?"

Cagalli chuckled, although it was bitter, and said with a terrible kind of silence in her voice, "She locked herself in an abandoned hut before anyone found her, and then she went into a coma for God-knows-how-long without the drugs. But when she woke up, she was clean from any influence the drugs would have on her, then she knew she was weaned of from the drugs from since then. Of course she knew when she was seven that if she didn't have any drugs, she would either die or kill someone in her insanity, so she locked herself up somewhere in a forest in North America."

He remembered Stellar, the Extended Shinn had brought back onto the Minerva and the way she had trembled violently and gone half-mad without the drugs. Shinn had thought she was going to die without them if he didn't bring her back, and in all reason, he was quite right. The girl had dark eye-circles and was painfully thin by the time he had brought her back, but if he had kept her there for a longer while and allowed her to go into the coma without the drugs, would she have survived eventually?

He really didn't know. He promised himself he would never tell Shinn that the girl could have survived even if he hadn't brought her back to her EA ship and allowed her to be used as a pilot for the Destroy Gundam where she had eventually died.

Athrun looked carefully at Cagalli and concluded, "The couple who took her in had no children, so they wanted her to keep them company because they were lonely, weren't they? Then how about now, since she's with you all the time?"

She looked away into the lights of the cars around them in the impending night and replied, "When I met them, they smiled and told me that I could be as selfish as I wanted and keep her for myself, because they knew Rainie wanted it that way."

Not quite understanding what she meant he echoed, "Selfish?"

"I was lonely like them too." She said, so softly he wouldn't have been able to hear her if it had been any softer.

Lost in their thoughts, they remained in silence until he pulled up in front of Kira's garage.

They went into the house after an attendant heard them at the doorway, and when they got to the second floor where all their rooms were, he heard some noises issuing out of Kira's room and the lights flooding through the gap the door made with the floor.

So he knocked gently, and when he heard no reply, he pushed it open and stood staring at Lacus and Kira, curled in front of the television and sleeping soundly on separate sofas. They had fallen asleep watching after the interview, with popcorn scattered here and there.

Then he saw a note Kira had scribbled and read it aloud to Cagallin who was peering at it from behind him, "Fixed a wedding date, be our best man and maid-of-honour, ask no questions, tell you in the morning."

He briefly wondered why they had even bothered getting engaged when they were like an old couple. He had never heard Kira openly tell Lacus that he loved her or the other way around, it was understood, and that had been enough for Lacus.

Kira had told him that they would have a real ceremony in a year's time when Lacus and him had more time on their hands and had saved up sufficiently to buy their own home and a 'nice dog'.

According to his best friend, Lacus wanted a golden retriever or a cockier spaniel. Kira didn't mind. He liked animals too, although he wanted either a husky or a Samoyed. Kira had laughed and said the one thing they had in common in preference of dog breed was that they weren't particularly fond of yapping, tiny Chihuahuas.

Either breed in any way, Athrun was quite sure he'd have to end up toilet-training their dog for them when he came to visit, since both of them were the type who spoiled their pets, and would be sure to spoil their children in the future, and it wouldn't just be a bit of indulgence,they'd be spoiling them rotten alright.

He sighed at their antics and collected his briefcase where he had left it for the past few days, hearing Cagalli laugh at the doorway and saying Kira and Lacus were cute, then he nimbly crept in front of the television and switched it off before leaving and closing the door.

She could have chosen to arrange for a car to cart her to and fro, but she had chosen to go with him, because she knew they didn't have much time before they left their separate ways. She didn't say so, but they both knew it very well.

Athrun was desperate for a miracle for her to suddenly turn around and tell him what he was equally desperate to hear, but someone up there wasn't his biggest fan. She hadn't said or done anything that would have given him a slightest clue of what she was thinking, and he wasn't quite sure she wasn't going to. So he didn't say much either, but prayed fervently.

They drove past the sea by the road in the late night with minimum traffic, and they saw the moon fading with the rest of the darkness, slowly but steadily. The night air was becoming less dense, and there was a freshness he could only identify as the morning breeze, and more light began flooding in from beyond the sea into the horizon.

And he felt a numbness in him again when he thought that two hours from then, they wouldn't be seeing each other for a long time. Of course, two months wasn't the same as two years, but the difference was that back then, he thought that they had no hope of ever reconciling the way he hoped for them to do now. Two months would be an agony to go through without her confirmation, and from the situation he had at hand now, he had to be prepared to go through it.

When she stepped out from the car and tonelessly said goodbye before thanking him for the lift and instructing him he not to drive her in all the way, he could only nod silently as she turned on her heel, carrying her suitcase with one good hand.

The sun was starting to deepen in its red, resembling the haumea stone she had given him four years ago in his PLANT office, locked in a drawer where nobody could get to it but him. He wanted to shout something after her, but thought better of it and clamped his jaw shut.

He had never expected to go through such a whirlwind of emotions when he had stepped down from his shuttle when he came here a week ago. He had meant to stay for three days only, but it had been extended to a week, then another day more.

When he had gotten the message from PLANT, he had been frightened and insecure, more than he would have liked to admit, even to himself.

He understood what it would mean to go back to ORB, where he still had a citizenship there, but ORB was nothing to him if she wasn't there and belonged to him like he already did to her. She may not have known it, but she had captured him so firmly that he knew the truth. He would never be free from her, but he didn't want to be free either.

He had tried to guarantee that she would be with him even though he had chosen to go back to ZAFT two years ago, and the ring had been a token of the promise. But it had been broken when she married Yuna because she thought it would save ORB. So what would happen now if he came for her two months later?

He was afraid that when he went to ORB two months later, he would have lost everything they had gotten back in a week, although he wasn't quite sure that he had what he hoped he had. she had admitted that she still had feelings for him, but that may have only been to make the situation less tense then. She may have only said that because they both knew that he wouldn't let her go unless she said something to that extent.

In any case, he wasn't quite sure that what they had now, if they did have anything at all, was enough to make her want to be with him when he arrived at ORB in two months' time. He was quite afraid that he would have to live out his days in ORB without seeing her the way he wanted to, and afraid that he would be waiting in vain for her to go back to him. He knew he could have asked her if she still would wait for him, but he couldn't gain enough courage and cheek to ask her to promise him that two months later, she would be there waiting to hold him in her arms, simply because he was afraid she would shake her head and say no.

Athrun Zala was nothing but a coward, he thought angrily. Although he had initially been pleased that Cagalli had signed the agreement to bring the exercise forward, he realised much later that signing the agreement to bring the military exercise forward had nothing to do with her personal life. If it was beneficial for ORB, she would do it, if it wasn't, well, then she'd refuse! It wasn't about her, or him, it was about ORB.

Even if she wanted to delay seeing him again, Athrun knew that she had enough sense and hadn't enough selfishness in her being to use her own personal reasons to delay or postpone something like that. At the end of a week, they were still left hanging in a queer balance, and he wanted to kick something and shout and yell his vocal chords bloody.

But he stared at her retreating back in painful silence, and drove off when she did not turn behind to see him again.

He never had her to himself. There were always things fighting for her with him, first war,then Yuna Roma Seiran, then ORB.

He knew she still carried the shell around her neck, although her progress in becoming ORB's leader had left her cold and cunning in some aspects, and the shell she had mentioned in the earlier interview could have been merely around her neck to detract attention away from some facts that could have caused a scandal. She had used the shell to her advantage earlier on in the interview, hadn't she?

She had learnt to be sly and suitably untruthful to make the situation seem more favourable to her and ORB, although he wasn't quite sure whether it was a good or bad thing. He knew that when he kissed her, she would push him away because of a fear that someone would see them and put all of them into a pinch. But he was always second-guessing himself, he never knew whether it was because of that, or it was whether she really didn't want to see him anymore and didn't know how to tell him that.

But he didn't care.As long as she remained who she really was with him, he couldn't care less what she did to help herself and ORB.

He still loved ORB too, it had been peaceful the last time he had seen it a year ago, recovering so well after the second war that it had looked virtually unscathed. As Alex Dino, he had been close to Cagalli; although he couldn't say anything or do anything when Yuna Roma Seiran had came close to her and dared put his arms around her in front of him.

But he didn't care then, because he was sure of her affections and remained with him. As long as she wanted to remain with him, he would be with her even if forty Yuna Roma Seirans were trying to drive him away. That was what he was-desperate. The problem was not with the situation anymore, it was with her. And maybe that was the cause of his desperation.

He received a call from his frantic secretary asking where he was now, because in an hour's time, the shuttle would leave for PLANT, to which he tonelessly replied, "I'm on my way" and remembered that Cagalli was on her way back to ORB too.

When he passed by the road that would lead him to the tunnel connected to the departure grounds PLANT had arranged the shuttle to take him back to, he saw the orange and pinks of the new sun and wanted to turn back time. He knew that the shuttles assigned by all ORB, PLANT and EA were merged into one service plant, and was sure that he would catch a glimpse of her. They left at the same time, and that made him suddenly more desperate than ever.

As he got out of the car that would be sent back to PLANT by a separate shuttle, his secretary popped out of the shuttle and waved frantically at him. Athrun spotted her and made his way there as slowly as humanely possible, so he could look around and see if the ORB shuttle was anywhere near the PLANT one.

He heard what she had to say by the time he got over into the shuttle, and then mouthed, "What?" in speechless apprehension and horror when she squealed to him that he had thousands of letters and mail wanting to know if he was attached or he was together with the ORB chairman.

Dearka's cheerful, mischievous face immediately materialised in his mind, and Athrun was forcefully reminded there and then of the way his friend who was of Jamaican descent had shouted to him once in jest, "Shut yer mouth and say it aint' so!"

Of course, that was when Athrun had received some mail and rushed to tell Dearka that Shiho's parents had been itching for a grandchild, so Shiho Hahenfuss had marched up to Yzak in front of all his troops, saluted, then promptly knelt on one elegant knee, and proceeded to propose to her fiancée on bended knee. She had even gotten the ring ready for him, but she had proceeded to tell him that she had bought it in his name since his pay was higher than hers.

When he had heard that Yzak had stood like a monument, frozen in terror, staring at his beautiful fiancée currently on one knee offering him a ring like a mere chocolate bonbon while all the elite troops he commanded were laughing like donkeys at him, Athrun's response had been to curse colourfully, but Dearka had screeched, 'Shut yer mouth and say it ain't so!"

Athrun was of European descent, and Europeans just did not speak like that.

But when the secretary nodded eagerly to confirm his fears and informed him that they either wanted to learn self-defence form him, enlist in ZAFT, or wanted to see him get together with the ORB chairman ASAP, he found himself shouting like Dearka into her stunned face, "Shut yer mouth and say it aint' so!"

Then he collapsed into his seat and laughed like a jackass for an hour at the sheer absurdity of it all.

And his secretary quietly requested for a change of seats to the flight attendants, to which they agreed, and then they agreed that double seatbelts were necessary for the ETERNITY chairman who probably had one too many drinks already.

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Author's notes: I created a little alternate reality to the background of the Extendeds, I hope nobody minds. Thanks for reading even up to this stage, continue to R&R&R and make my day!


	20. Chapter 20

Disclaimer: I don't own a thing of GS/GSD, but I like ASUCAGA. Alot. If I had a say in GSD at all, I would have kicked out all those who had been forced to become part of Athrun's harem, because nobody can have him except Cagalli Yula Atha. Please R&R&R, thanks!

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Chapter 20

By the time she got out of his car, Cagalli was pretty sure that she was in a big mess. Her luggage was hastily packed, but it could be sorted out later in ORB. Now, her head was in a bigger mess than her luggage.

She wanted to turn back now and throw away the luggage and run back into his arms and stay there forever, but she couldn't because she didn't know what she wanted and she was afraid of making the wrong decision at the wrong time.

The car ride with Athrun hadn't been as awkward as it could have been but they were avoiding their own issues by talking about Rainie's issues, except when she had failed to keep quiet about her loneliness during the two years when she hadn't seen him. She had unconsciously tried so hard to take herself from the desire to be with him in the past two years by simply making excuses that ORB needed all her attention. It had worked for two years. It wasn't going to anymore.

Cagalli turned to look at the empty road beyond the gate and felt the wind blowing. It wasn't a warm breeze, but a harsh wind which was more typical of Berlin's winters. She shivered not because of the cold, but because she was afraid of the uncertain.

She could carry her luggage pretty alright with only one good hand, but that wasn't really the problem. She knew he was staring at her back when she walked through the embassy gates, because she could feel his eyes boring holes into her back. When she had finally turned around, he had already left.

The shell was still hanging off her neck, and if she tried to hard enough, she could recall what it felt like to have him tying it around her neck, and she felt a pain so intense her numb left hand actually twitched with her other hand even though it was supposed to be numb.

Smiling bitterly after discovering that internal pain was the cure for a numb arm, she pushed her way into the building where security immediately let her through.

She wanted to just go with him and forget every other thing in the world, not her ORB duties of course, that was out of the question, but the things she wanted to forget were the scars she had once sustained when she had been with him. She didn't want to just go and forgt everythng and wake up one day to find herself a stranger again and see Athrun look at her with indifferent eyes. She was afraid that he would suddenly realise that there was someone else waiting for him and join the othe person, whoever it might be, and leave her tired and cold. And then, she'd know too late, that her love was unrequited.

She didn't want to believe in anybody's words, not even his, but a part of her still wanted to believe in his warm embrace when he held her inspite of all her inhibitations.And then all the 'what if's built up in her and she wanted to punch something and maybe she'd obtain the answer then.

She wasn't sure what to do anyway. So she let herself be led by all her attendants to the car, then she got onto the shuttle and sat there for a long time while the preparations were made, thinking long and thinking hard. Then she got frustrated and started pulling and yanking her hair and gave up and called Kira instead.

The phone rang for some time, but she persisted because she knew he would answer eventually, even if it was six in the morning. He would be waking up to start work anyway, a little earlier wouldn't hurt anyone.

"Kira," she said authoritatively, "wake up and talk to me."

She heard silence at the end of the phone and waited impatiently until a sleepy, "Ehhh…" was heard, then she said as patiently as she possible could, "I need to talk to you."

Then she heard a series of yawns before Kira, suddenly alert like he had never been sleeping said calmly into the phone, "How can I help you?"

She laughed although she hadn't thought it was possible a while back then and shouted into the phone, "This isn't the shop-to-save enquiry office, Kira, damnit!"

"Oh," he said a little lamely, and then said again, "So…what can I do to help you?"

Cagalli sighed and checked her watch. She still had a good forty-five minutes left before communications were cut off for the shuttle to leave properly. So she played for time.

"We got the message you left for us last night,"she said evenly, "Where will you get married and what date is it?"

"Oh, we agreed that it would be held in PLANT itself since Lacus grew up there," he replied airily, yawning a little, "And the date, well, not quite confirmed yet but about two months' time would be sufficient to make the arrangements if we work fast enough."

She forced a smile into her voice, but when she spoke, she lost it and decided to go straight to the point.

"What do I do now?" she asked morosely.

"About Athrun, you mean," he was saying coolly.

"I need a little advice," she said listlessly.

"Tell me first, do you still want to be with him?" she heard her brother retort.

"I-I don't know, maybe we're better off as comrades, you know, that kind of thing" she said tonelessly, looking out of the window she was seated ands trapped next to, ignoring the blinding light that was coming in from the signals and the sun.

"You know as well as I do that ORB isn't in need of desperate attention so much so that you can't have a relationship concerning something other than ORB," her brother began.

"Uh-huh," she confirmed dully, tapping her nails against the window for no reason at all. They always tried to make her paint them with varnish but she would scratch it off when they weren't looking.

"And you know he already made it clear that he wants to be with you," Kira continued steadily.

"Mm-hm,' she trotted out tonelessly and fingered the shell around her neck and feeling a need to hold something for comfort.

"So the only question is, do you?" Kira concluded calmly.

"I think that I should- wait! Why are you repeating whatever I just told you?" Cagalli cried, enraged, truly believing that her twin was playing with her by not letting on anything that she could do, but merely telling her the situation she knew she was in. Maybe he was playing for time too.

"I'm helping you sort through your thoughts," he cut in hastily at the other end, because he wasn't to sure what to tell her and wanted to buy for time but certainly couldn't tell her that over the phone.

"Oh," she said apologetically, quietening down instantly. Then her fingers wandered back to the shell and she closed her eyes, tired from everything around her.

"So, do you?" Kira said quickly, in case she realised he was pulling the 'psychology crap' on her again.

He heard silence and when he prompted with a strategically placed, "Well?" all he heard was a single, solitary, non-committal grunt.

He sighed and proceeded to continue with the psychology crap he had learnt form Lacus.

"Alight, let's work through the pros and cons together" he said soothingly, sensing her distress.

"Okay, let's," was her immediate, relieved answer. Anything to go on, she though dully, anything.

"If you were to pretend nothing happened and you and him didn't get on the road to reconciliation two months later after he's arrived in ORB, what are the benefits of it? Or in other words, what are the cons of agreeing to be with him?"

"Umm, I'm not free to go out on dates with other people?" she suggested hesitantly.

He was about to consider what she had said and thought of something.

"Since when have you gone out dating with other people anyway?" Kira asked curiously.

"Right," she said a little lamely, "I haven't."

When she had been thirteen and Yuna had been sixteen, he had come up to her and demanded that she kiss him since he had been announced as her fiance that very day . She had responded by bashing him up and threatening to kill him apart if he didn't back off. And when he had wanted to complain to his parents and her father, she had tricked him into openly threatening her while she recorded everything down, and then she produced the tape in front of him and warned him not to say anything or he'd regret it.

So she had been wary of most boys after that and she hadn't been attached to anyone except Athrun, and that had been something inevitable for her too.

And years later when she had bene eighteen and had returned to ORB on the Archangle when ZAFT had been attacking in a bid to find Lord Djibril, she had tricked him again into passing on all his authority to her because she promised him she'd take care of ORB. But her first command had been for the officers frustrated with his incompetence to arrest him for treason, and Yuna had been terrified beyond any doubt.

He had been so delighted at her return that he had been truly fooled by her, and then he had been beaten up and subdued. She had learnt how to lose her humanity that day.But then she had lost some of it the day when Freedom had emerged out of the water and Kira and she had met Athrun, his eyes filled with hatred, looking straight at her.

"Have you been attached to anyone other than Athrun before, Cagalli?" he asked suddenly.

"No," she started to say, than was embarrassed at her obvious lack of experience with relationships and changed the direction and said, "Well, I didn't know you were my twin then, so I was quite interested in you, but Fllay Alster kept trying to stick to you, so I gave up in the end. I wasn't too keen on being a third party anyway. Of course that was when I didn't know we were twins," she reassured him.

Kira snorted and said teasingly, "Thank God."

"Do you know what a rebound is, Cagalli?" he said, not quite in total seriousness.

"You get together with other people after you break up with someone, just for fun?" she said, trying to remember what one of her schoolmates had said a long time ago.

"Yeah, well, did you ever have one after you finished settling ORB?"

"Oh," she said dumbly, "I didn't think of having a rebound. How do you find a person who wants to have a rebound with you anyway, am I right?"

"Right," he repeated, trying not to laugh at her cluelessness, "so can you think of another con of being with Athrun?"

"Work and life outside work will be more complicated?" she suggested.

"Yeah, but with relations now in PLANT and ORB, there's probably not going to be much ETERNITY and ORB can go wrong with," he argued, knowing that he was right. The rest of the world would never let relations go wrong after gaining so much peace and stability the relations had brought them after two painful wars.

"Besides, both of you never mix work with other things, so that con doesn't count," he said thoughtfully.

"Another con is that Athrun can't see other girls who might suit him better if we're together?" she quickly said to get a foothold of the ground she was supposed to argue about.

"I know he has a fan club of girls and other admirers the size of the Pacific," Kira said calmly, "but he's the faithful type. If he wasn't, I would have already gone into SEED mode and killed him already, since it's you who's concerned."

She was touched at Kira's steadfastness and muttered that he was nuts even though she knew she wanted to hug her twin until he gasped for air.

"Another con you can think of?" he said in a business like manner, looking over at Lacus who had stirred slightly.

"I'll have to lose all my pride and dignity and say I was wrong," she said finally, then hung her head, knowing full well he couldn't see her do it.

"Because you told another to take care of him two years ago, and if you get together with him now, you'll be eating your words?" he guessed.

"Well, that, yeah," she said miserably, 'and also because I'm a little afraid that he'll just get tired of me and go off one day."

Kira thought of saying something on his best friend's behalf but decided to hinge the topic instead.

"Okay, so um, pros of being with him when he comes to ORB?" he said, moving slightly and trying not to talk too loudly in case Lacus woke up. She had drifted off to sleep and then he had thought he would watch a programme after the interview but ended up dozing off too.

"Maybe I'll be really happy?" Cagalli said weakly.

He resisted the urge to shout, "Duh!" and said thoughtfully, "That's a real possibility there now isn't it?"

She didn't catch the obvious hint and the sarcasm either, so she said, "Another pro is that ORB gets a nice scandal to talk about, although that isn't really a pro is it?"

Kira considered what she had said, thoughtfully chewing on some popcorn he found on the ground.

"Well, seeing how both of you have inspired people enough for them to have started something called an ASUCAGA FOREVER fan club, I'd hardly think people would consider it as a scandal, maybe more of something like, a worldwide call for celebration," he said seriously, not at all in jest.

He heard his twin gasping like she was short of air and concernedly asked, "Are you alright?"

"Yes" she croaked, "What's an ASUCAGA FOREVER fan club?"

"Well, there are people all over the world who watched the interview because they were curious if the conspiracy theories were true, and they wanted to know if the 'assassination' would start anything more serious than that, like you know, a political war or something, but when they watched interview, they decided to start a fan club in honour of Athrun and you."

"Of course it's not confirmed that you two are officially together, although last night, many rumours have sprung up after the interview" he continued calmly in spite of the worrying spluttering and choking sounds he heard at the other end, " but you two sure do have lots of supporters, thousands of them of course. Not bad, especially since it sprung up over the Internet in a single night. I went to check after the interview because I was bored and didn't have the heart to wake Lacus for idle conversation."

"Holy crap," Cagalli croaked again, "It's not like we're some pop singers or idols."

"Actually," Kira corrected her, "You've been promoted to more immense international-icon status along with my best friend more than ever before. They seem to think that God wants both of you to get together and have mini-yourselves running around in ORB, since it was officially announced after the interview on the news that the ETERNITY Chairman was posted by PLANT to live in ORB for the next ten years."

She didn't know what she could say to that, and said a little shakily, "So there are more cons than pros of being together with him, aren't there?"

Kira sighed and said roughly, "Have you done a pro-and-con chart before Cagalli?"

"Never," she said in confusion, "probably for the really complicated issues, the secretaries do it for us behind the scenes and give us easier options to choose, and then we just make the final arrangements and decisions."

"What we do with the pro and on chart is to list down all the pros and cons of the issues like what we've just done verbally," Kira explained quickly, sure that he could hear some announcement going on in the background for all cells to be switched off for a safe take-off, "And then usually, we see if there are more pros or more cons and take the decision which gives us more pros than cons."

"Right," Cagalli was saying hurriedly, signalling to the attendant that she would be done in an instant, "So in this case, it would be better to break it off for good?"

"You're jumping the gun, Cagalli," Kira said briefly, knowing that the shuttle would take off and communication would be automatically cut off in a few seconds time.

"There's another alternative step you can choose to take when you make the decision. It's not just the number of pros that outnumber the cons or the other way round that will determine the decision you make. A decision can still be made even when there is only one pro next to say, ten cons, because it depends on what the single pro is. In this case, it's the pro that-"

"Yes?" she said breathlessly and waiting to hear what he would say, clutching to the cell like her life depended on it. In a weird sense of the word, it did.

Kira paused for breath, ignoring Lacus who had just woken up and was staring at him in surprise, wondering at the back of his mind how she could manage to look so perfectly groomed even when she had only just woken up. And then he realised that she had been listening for quite some time. But he went on anyway.

"If you agree to be with him, the pro you'll get from it, even if it's the only pro next to so many other cons, is that you'll ultimately be happy."

And then the line went dead as communication was cut off.

* * *

Author's note:

This chapter's like the moment of reckoning for me, you know?

When I wrote this chapter, there had been already so many problems in the ASUCAGA relationship I had somehow churned up while writing that I actually considered, (brace yourself ye ASUCAGA-fanatics) breaking them off and ending it in something like Final Plus.

Thank heavens I had my best friend and fellow ASUCAGA-fanatic RWSH to work out the pros-and-cons while we cahtted on MSN, so the conversation you have just read was the actual conversation we had but tweaked a little of course.I was the pessimist, RWSH was the optimist and voice of reasoning, aka, Kira.

So this chapter is dedicated to RWSH, and if you're reading this RWSH, I want you to know, ASUCAGA BANZAI!

And if anybody is wondering how the phrase 'comrade love' I made Cagalli mention actually came about, just know that Fukuda said Athrun and Cagalli were in their current hiatus in terms of relationship because their kind of love was just 'comrade love' in Fukuda's own words.

Yeah I know. When I heard that, I said, "bullcrap!"

But he says it's comrade love.

Let's prove him wrong.

R&R&R, people.


	21. Chapter 21

Disclaimer: I own nothing of GS/GSD, but if I did, I would try and give Athrun's respective Red Gundams a dye-job, because red's a little too flashy for my liking. Oh, Akatsuki too, I get the feeling it's a homage to Star War's golden android, can't remember it's name. Horrid gold, it is.

* * *

Chapter 21

Athrun Zala was in a bad mood. Even Yzak Joule, who didn't even notice when he was in a bad mood himself, could see that very clearly, his friend was in a bad mood. He didn't slam any doors or bash chairs or yell like what Yzak would have done of course, but the man was listless and uninterested in anything other than his work. Which was stupid, Yzak concluded.

His friend had arrived back in PLANT about a month and two weeks ago, looking weary and drawn, which he had said was due to the workload. Yzak wasn't the type who lacked an ounce of thinking power in his head of course, he knew his friend was lying through his face.

Yzak had walked into the office one random day, and caught Chairman Zala doodling on some official scripts. Yzak had cleared his throat, and Athrun had sprung up in shock and swiftly hidden the paper from sight, but Yzak wasn't blind either, he knew the chairman of ETERNITY had been writing her name all over the paper. He hadn't said anything, just watched his friend sweat buckets with slits for eyes and hear Athrun ask shakily, "How can I help you, Commander Joule?"

The guy was obviously guilty of something.

He looked up at Shiho arranging some test-tubes of fuel the GOUF could function on and asked rudely just to get a kick out of it, "Where's the idiot?"

She didn't even bother looking up at him, just continued arranging the test-apparatus and answered briefly, "Which idiot, Yzak?"

He couldn't stand her cool attitude and screeched, "The idiot's just an idiot, why's there a need to know other idiots other than him?"

"So it's a male idiot," she concluded very wisely and calmly, then went back to rearranging some wires plugged to the OS of a GOUF.

He was going to blow up, he could feel it coming so he quickly turned while seated on some broken computer he had been resting on while watching his fiancé do some work, and counted one to ten and breather deeply. He wondered if Shiho's German heritage had anything to do with her stoic nature. Then he thought of her parents and concluded that it wasn't the German heritage at all. His mother had suddenly just told him to go and marry his childhood playmate and friend; he had kept quiet about it, not quite sure if her parents were telling her to do the same.

Of course he didn't mind getting hitched to her at all, she was very intelligent and incredibly attractive, not in the coventional way, of course, but she had a razor-sharp wit he looked out for and found in people only very rarely. And Shiho was the kind he hadn't gone for at first but had found himself more and more drawn to her.

She had told him she despised him once when he had accidentally knocked over her carefully-arranged tests and he had spent nearly a month trying to apologise to her. With Dearka's help of course, without his best friend, he would have been lost already.

Dearka had suggested flowers and chocolates, the kind of stuff most females went for and Yzak had tried it at first and failed miserably when the flowers were sent back to him with a note written and attached, "Don't bother." and the chocolates had been opened and one had been eaten and the rest remaining intact with another note attached, "These chocolates are expired, aren't they?"

And then Dearka had figured out Shiho Hahenfuss wasn't the conventional kind of girl, so he had made Yzak get her a pictorial calculator which was the bst for solving quadratic equations in seconds and a GOUF specimen chart.

She had appeared in his office in the morning, saluted stiffly and then said very calmly, "Sorry I got mad too."

And then a week later, she had proposed to him in front of all his troops, and he had nearly gone into a state of shock-induced coma.

Yzak scowled at the insanity of life and heard Shiho typing something on her keyboard. Willing himself not to lose the mature side he had achieved and acquired through the two years after the first war, he breathed in and out slowly.

Then he turned back to Shiho who was polishing the screen very carefully and said calmly, "Where's Athrun Zala, Shiho?"

"I don't know, I don't keep a sensor of him on me, Commander" she said absently, not bothering to avert her eyes from the screen to at least look at him.

"You watch your mouth, lady," he snarled, "being a good friend and the future wife doesn't mean you get to be smart with the commander."

"It's true," she was saying calmly, still not looking at him while she climbed onto a chair in her male uniform to get something on a shelf she couldn't reach, "I don't keep a sensor of him on me."

Her long, dark hair was swishing tantalisingly above his head, neatly tied with a pink ribbon at the end, and he resisted the urge to fetch the pair of scissors a distance away to snip the end of for fun. He was a grown-up, not some kitten itching for yarn to be dangled! He wished he hadn't given her the pink ribbon now, it was too distracting.

"Why don't you wear a skirt or something that ZAFT allows for female redcoats, like maybe Officer Hawke's miniskirt?" he snapped, trying to pick a fight with her.

"I'm already wearing a skirt," she said, her voice muffled by the pilot helmet she had put on her head to try for size.

"That's part of the coat, not a skirt!" he yelled, while she slipped the helmet off and turned it upside down, looking at its inner structure.

"I knew that already, Commander, but since all of you don't wear skirts, I thought I should do likewise," she said emotionlessly, now fetching a long tree branch she had randomly picked up and prodding it into the helmet.

"We're males, Officer; of course we don't wear sodding skirts!"

"Why not, Commander?" she enunciated clearly, now standing up to fetch a joystick from the corner. Then she fetched a rag and polished it very meticulously.

"I-I don't know!" he spluttered angrily.

"Well, then why shouldn't females wear male clothes, if males can't explain the reason why males can't wear female clothes?"

She had trapped him, so he picked on another issue she had brought up first- the sensor thing.

"So you keep a sensor of someone at all?" Yzak growled, irritated but still pushing on for a fight.

"No," she was saying while she located the file and pulled it out, still not giving him any attention, "I don't keep sensors of anyone except one of you, Commander."

And then she produced a little screen from her pocket where there were two flashing lights, one red and one red, and one blue, and they were right next to each other in the same office.

He promptly fell of his broken computer-seat in shock, and looked up just in time to see a pair of shoes near his nose.

Yzak quickly got up with as much dignity as he possessed, and looked at Athrun.

"What are you staring at?" he said emotionlessly. He had matured from the time when he was seventeen, and was able to be calm and controlled for most of the time but in private, Shiho still brought out his worst side, and he loved her for it. With her, he lost his sanity, and that was how they both liked it.

"Nothing," Athrun said tonelessly, "Just checking if you have file DQI 192774 HAVT. I need it for the new blueprint of the ZAKU the new troops are to be trained with."

Shiho was instantly crossing over with the file in her hands and saluting to him, and he responded likewise.

Then he took the file and turned to leave. No attempt to make conversation, no smile, no nothing.

Yzak watched him leave with Shiho, who had finally stopped doing God-knows-what and stood in silence by his side.

"Will he be alright?" Yzak wondered to himself, then grew red with embarrassment when he realised he had said the words aloud in front of his fiancé.

She was looking up at him in surprise and wonder although she didn't say anything. She knew better than that. She would store it in her extensive memory and use it against him some other time when they were arguing, that is if he could rile her up enough to fight with him.

"What do you think of Chairman Atha?" she said without malice, slipping a hand into the crook of his arm and catching him off guard.

He knew the way she expressed affection was quite a deviant from the usual person's since she had presented him a small, model-scale GOUF's head after he had shyly slipped her a box of sweets in herYFX-200 CGUE DEEP Arms during Valentine's Day, but she was adorable in her quirkiness and her intelligence. (Later, the GOUF head had been proven to be a mini neutron-jammer.)

"She's intelligent and pretty enough if you can stuff her into a dress, but she's too prickly and likes her freedom too much," he said, not unkindly.

"About the prickly part, were you effectively describing yourself, Commander?" Shiho said calmly, and then when he gaped at her, she took her hand away from his and marched back to her test-tubes where she refused to say anything for another hour even when he was goading her to the best of his abilities.

Back in his office, some distance away, in the headquarters of the leaders of ZAFT and the council of ETERNITY, Athrun flipped through the file Shiho had passed him and admired her handiwork. She was basically almost a male version of Kira, scientific and precise in her judgements, and still child-like at times.

No wonder she appealed to his hot-headed friend so much, he hadn't even complained when Ezalia Joule had arranged for him to marry the daughter of the military family of Hahenfuss. Ezalia was shrewd herself. She knew Shiho Hahenfuss, then already a friend to Yzak, would rein her son in very nicely, and Ezalia would be bouncing a grandchild on her lap soon.

Her work on the DQI 192774 HAVT Zaku was astonishing. She had programmed the Zakus to have better abilities in speed and superior manoeuvre abilities with smooth controls that would enable the new troops ZAFT had trained as an elite class to learn at twice the speed recruits had before. And she had probably done it without breaking a sweat.

Athrun took down some notes on his QUINd and prepared to include the references of the type of controls the new Zaku into his report due to PLANT in a few days time. The new class of soldiers had yet to be named, although they were issued the same red uniform the elite in ZAFT wore with an additional badge of beaten silver into the outline of an up-turned triangle. The three vertices represented EA, PLANT and ORB.

He finished off the report and drank the dregs of his tea. He had refused to drink coffee ever since he came back to PLANT a month ago. He couldn't bring himself to drink coffee any more. When he was tired, he would just go and wash his face instead, no more coffee, no more. He threw away the packet of coffee-sweets his secretary had given to him in a bid to tempt to get him to drink coffee so she could test her brewing skills and had snapped at her for the first time in her working history and then she had suddenly became a star-worker.

Athrun never had to re-edit her work anymore, it was all prefectly done the way it should have been ages ago, but he hadn't complained then because extra work meant less opportunities to think of Cagalli.

He wasn't trying to forget Cagalli, he was sure of that. He knew he couldn't anyway. He was just trying to prepare himself for the worst when this month was over, and then he crossed over to check the calendar and saw that the date to leave for ORB was exactly three weeks from then.

They had made the arrangements already. The new troops would leave with some Redcoats to go to ORB to train to broaden their range of skills and they would be released after two years each to go back to PLANT and a new batch would come. He would be training them too. PLANT had informed him of him tasks in the long run, and he knew it wouldn't be without the existing paperwork he had on his hands now. At least his pay would match the amount of work he had to do. Not that he cared anymore.

He had to be prepared to be worked to death, although admittedly, it would be easy to work if he was working while knowing he had someone waiting for him in a warm home in ORB. He didn't say anything of course, he wasn't an idiot, and besides, nobody would listen anyway.

Athrun flipped open some papers he had randomly gotten on his hands and saw a model of the new Zaku being published there. Then he remembered that Shiho had told him to see some function she had put in, written on page sixteen.

So he groped for the file he had put under the pile of paperwork on his desk and pulled it out, flipping to page sixteen to try and see the function she had mentioned, and as he pulled it towards him while flipping, a picture fell out.

It was a newspaper cutting, a picture of him, Kira, Lacus and Cagalli in the gardens when they had all been in EA Berlin a month ago. He saw a picture of himself smiling stiffly and looked at Cagalli and saw that she was blushing very slightly, almost unnoticeable if one didn't look carefully enough, and smiling shyly at the camera, also a little stiff and unsure of herself. Then he looked carefully at her eyes and saw they weren't dull like he thought they would be at that time, but were wide and surprised at the invasion of cameras and the sudden appearance of Lacus and Kira.

He stared hard at her face and thought fondly to himself that she looked like a child with her eyes so wide and innocent. He wanted to keep her that way for as long as possible, and then he realised that he had been sitting there with a newspaper clipping in his hands for along time and quickly stuffed it back between pages sixteen and seventeen, quite forgetting that Shiho had told him to look at page sixteen specifically.

But later, he realised that she had planned this. She was smart alright.

Then he picked up the phone, and scarcely before he knew it, he had dialled the ORB government office and was requesting to be put through to the chairman's personal line. He gave his name and designation in a rush, not caring that the desk-secretary could be taping the conversation and selling it to the fan club he knew existed to spread news around of him and ORB's Chairman. ASUCAGA something something ridiculous. It was ridiculous, no not the name, but the fact that the general populace was rooting for them and they weren't rooting for themselves.

He knew very well that he could have requested to see her through a direct connection from the QUINd, but he hadn't though of that until he had been put through to the ORB office.

He heard the line being out through and wondered if he should put it down in case he made a fool of himself, but then he heard her voice loud and clear through the system linking earth and space together and croaked, "Hello, Cagalli."

She was at the other end feeling awkward but readily answered, "Hello, Athrun, is this about business or you just calling to chat?"

He was tempted to say it was business and bluff his way through it all, but he knew he was quite incapable of that at that time, so he said a little jerkily, "I'm calling to chat. Do you have time on your hands now?"

"Yes," she answered very shyly, "I finished my tasks for the day, so I'm- I'm free to talk for as long from now to whenever we're done, that is, it depends on how long you want to talk for."

Athrun wanted to shout 'forever!' into the phone but quickly clamped his mouth shut and then said, "Uh, so what's going on in ORB now?"

She replied instantly with a chuckle, "Oh about the same as ever, lots of improvements to be made here and there, and then the army's getting all hyped up to receive ZAFT! Amagi's been talking about the stuff he'll drill into the soldiers when they get there. He's been polishing those bazookas all week! Oh, and Rainie's dating Vino, you know Vino from the Minerva? He came to ORB just a few weeks ago, because you guys sent him over here to try and program certain Mobile Suits to something more comfortable for the ZAFTies to train in the forests.

I saw him at a garage and I ran over and invited him for tea, so he came over and had to pass this security test, then he promptly fell head over heels for Rainie. She hated him at first, because she thought I was interested in recruiting him as a bodyguard, apparently Vino can fight quite well when it comes to hand-to-hand combat, but he's not a good shot at guns. But then she realised that she liked him very, very much and they've been going out since. They squabble a lot, like puppies, you know?"

Then she paused for breath, realising that she was rambling in an effort to keep him on the line and to break the awkward silence.

And he had to come in and added on instantly, "I knew he would go for somebody like Rainie. Vino always liked that sort, he had a crush on Lunamaria, then on Meyrin, then on Lacus, but it was more of Mia Campbell he had a crush on. He goes for the cute stuff; he's like a kid himself, always looking up to Shinn and the others. I know Lunamaria once got him to do a thousand odd jobs for her by just pouting at him. Does he still have that patch of orange?"

"Ah, yes, he does, he said he didn't dye it himself, his mother thought it was cute and arranged for his hair to be modified that way when he was still a zygote, so he's been stuck with the orange squirt name for his whole life, but it's okay, since ZAFT knows it's natural, they never hound on him or anything for inappropriate attire." She said, thinking that she would be stuck on what to say at some juncture, so she had better say as much as she could for now.

Her hands were in her lap, twisting at the table cloth and releasing it and retwisting it.

"Oh, I was wondering how much he had bribed Arthur Trine to not get on his case for the orange hair, but looks like he didn't have to bribe Arthur at all." He replied smoothly.

She didn't see any room to reply, so she was silent after she made a sound in assent.

He was quiet for a bit, knowing that he couldn't delay what he had called up to find out, then thought to himself, 'what the heck' and bravely plunged into it asking a little hesitantly, "Have you forgotten that ETERNITY and PLANT will post me to be in ORB three weeks from now?"

She was silent after that, and his heart was beating painfully with suspense and tension. Three weeks of silence and not knowing how she would respond when he came to ORB to live for the next ten years. He couldn't wait that long to be sure, he had called because he needed to be certain there and then.

Just to be sure she had heard him, he repeated his question again.

Holding his breath, he heard silence, then a tentative "No, I haven't forgotten."

Cagalli had said she hadn't forgotten that ZAFT and ETERNITY would arrive in ORB exactly three weeks from then, although it had been understood that the chairman of ORB couldn't possibly forget something so important and instrumental in ORB and PLANT relations.

They both knew she hadn't forgotten and wouldn't forget, but that was just a question masking other meanings hidden into it. It was a question that held so much in it, it was a two-way time-bomb in itself, the kind that would either explode or just fizzle out.

They both knew that three weeks would be agony for him to wait while hanging in suspense. They both knew why he had asked if she had forgotten that he would arrive in ORB in three weeks time. They both knew what that question masked. They both knew what he meant when he asked.

There was a prolonged silence, and Athrun was sure he was going into hypertension.

She was still silent although they could hear each other breathing heavily down the line on the other side.

As he was wondering how to continue, she whispered into the phone, "Have you done a pro-and-con-chart to make an important decision before?"

He was wondering if she had lost her mind, but decided to humour her, just in case she was changing the subject, and answered, "I think so, in school, that is."

"Do you know how it works?" she said, sounding breathless but terribly determined at the same time.

"Yes," he said, wondering what the world was going on, "you list the pros and the cons, and then you count the number of pros and cons, and take the decision with more pros then cons, unless the decision with more cons than pros have one very important pro that you must have at the end of making the decision. Am I correct?"

Athrun heard more silence, and opened his mouth to ask if she was alright at the other side, then he heard her answer, "Yes you are. Spot-on, actually."

Still wondering why she had suddenly brought up something so random, he paused, ready to ask her why she had started talking about it, but then he heard her enunciate very softly but clearly, so clear that he couldn't miss it even if she was on Earth and he was in deep space, "I want to be happy."

He paused and repeated what she had said in his mind, trying to figure out if she was being very, very random or there was some meaning to it.

Then he wanted to ask her something but he heard her suddenly draw herself in, breathe a deep breath and yell very loudly in a terrible rush of words and emotions, "I will wait for you in ORB even if you take forever to come here to where I am!"

And then he felt the numbness somewhere dissipate into a mist and metamorphose into an incredible rush of joy and wild emotions as he imagined her sitting in her office, holding the phone in her hands and her face all red with the effort to shout out what she truly wanted and what she truly felt.

He took in a deep breath too, then promptly yelled down the phone without thinking how ridiculous he would actually sound like on the other side, "I will always be with you forever!"

And then he beamed like he had never done for what seemed like eternity.

What they had shouted to each other was so random, it seemed like they had been born with clouds for brains and could only formulate sentences that had no link to what the other said. But whizzing through some sophisticated system of communication that linked PLANT in deep space and ORB on Earth was a promise of hope and truth.

And that was enough for them.

Then he put down the phone, calmly pushed his chair back and suddenly leapt into the air, pumping his fist wildly and whooping like a hooligan in a manner he knew his parents would never approve of if they had still been around to see him receive the confirmation he had been waiting to get for so long.

And in an office a distance away, Shiho slipped a little piece of metal out of her ear and looked at Yzak.

"What?" he said warily, although he was sensing that she was in a pleasant mood.

"I'll treat you to dinner for tonight," she said mildly, and then she looped her arm through his and silently led him out but not before tossing the earpiece she had used to eavesdrop into a bin where she knew someone would clear it in the next twenty minutes.

* * *

Author's notes:

I'm glad some of the reviews so far have been requesting for an Yzak/Shiho cameo, because I had already put it in a long time ago, so it made me quite glad there were people out there interested in them too.

Next up (I'm trying to make this kinda like a spoiler): Cagalli meets Athrun in ORB.

Ah, I stink at this, just R3. okay?

Thanks!


	22. Chapter 22

Disclaimer: I don't own GS/GSD, nothing of it at all. But I own the storyline and various parts of this though. Please R&R&R.

* * *

Chapter 22

"Very well then," Cagalli said angrily, "State your cases clearly."

Her cabinet members were flustered and were arguing amongst themselves, and when she called for attention, nobody heard her, so she got up at the head of the long oblong table and slammed her fist on it for silence. Kisaka andAmagi shook their heads at the side, silently praying that she wouldn't erupt like a volcano and scare the heck out of them.

But it was truly ridiculous. They had gathered in the morning to discuss a new treaty PLANT was offering to ORB, in which they wanted ORB's permission to allow the ZAFT troops stationed thereto bring over their families, although PLANT would ultimately provide for them while they were in ORB. It was not so much a win-win situation like the earlier treaty, more of just providing the ZAFT soldiers something to look forward to when they came to ORB. But that was how she looked at the ZAFT troops' families coming over, not so much her cabinet's.

Cagalli didn't see what the problem was in allowing the troops to bring over their families, since the housing minister had submitted a very concise report that showed ORB clearly had enough free space to have thrice the estimated number PLANT wanted to bring over, and as long as PLANT could provided for them while they were in ORB, why, let those in ZAFT have their loved ones with them!

She had argued that it was a win-win situation for ORB, since ORB would gain more human resources to contribute to the conomy even while PLANT was the one paying for their living expenses and education for their children.

But no, some cabinet ministers were against it because they were afraid of too many coordinators to handle and give them all extra work, making ridiculous excuses that the ZAFT Coordinators were brought up differently from ORB Coordinators. Apparently, that would teach make coordinators in ORB to be more obviously different than ORB's naturals. Then the living example that Coordinators and Naturals could get along and live together in the same place would be destroyed. That would ultimately throw the world into chaos and doubt again, if too many coordinators were to invade ORB at one go, one had even suggested.

"Invade?" she repeated coolly, even though she was boiling her intestines right inside, "What do you mean invade?"

The minister immediately realised what eh had said and stuttered, "I-I only meant that too many ZAFT Coordinators here is equivalent to a sort of, you know inbalance and a kind of um…."

"Save it," Cagalli commanded coldly, "Let me make this clear once and for all."

She pushed her chair backwards and stood up, pacing silently while the thirty-eight members of parliament she headed waited for her to speak. She knew an eighteen-year old girl didn't usually press much influence on officials who were about twice her age, but she still had to try. Two years ago, she had proven herself, and they had never doubted her capabilities once she had assumed full control from the Seirans. She would show her capabilities again today.

"First of all, we have agreed that ORB will open its doors willingly to the two hundred or so ZAFT troops for the next ten years or even longer if everything goes smoothly. This is to allow our troops to learn something from the ZAFT army, and likewise, for the ZAFT army to train in our forests which will up their own level of expertise like our ORB troops. Secondly, the military exercise allows for better relations, which is ultimately what the world and all of us see as the key to long-term peace. Comments?"

"Chairman Atha, bringing over ZAFT troops here has already been settled like you have said, but now they want more Coordinators from PLANT to come over here! What happens if the balance of Coordinators and Naturals in ORB is ruined? Wouldn't conflict start?" cried the mayor.

"Give them the poll results, Amagi," Cagalli ordered, and then the black files were handed out to every member of the parliament.

"As you can see on the first page of the file," she continued authoritatively, "98 of our citizens welcome not only ZAFT troops, which fuelled our decision to allow them over, but 99.4 of our citizens are willing for their families to come over too. The remaining 0.6 are willing, but a little concerned that our facilities and resources are not adequate to shelter the ZAFT families, although they are willing to have the families in the suburbs of ORB as long as the ZAFT families do not suffer here. This means to say that ORB is welcoming not only the ZAFT troops, but their families too. Comments?"

She paused, looked keenly at them, and knew she was making headway.

"Furthermore," she added swiftly, "not allowing their families over will make the troops here miserable. Imagine training in a foreign place without your family nearby for two whole years! It's enough to make anybody go mad. Besides, ORB has proven Coordinators from PLANT can live well with Naturals from ORB for the last hundred years and rising, and if PLANT has already officially declared it will provide for the families over here if they are allowed to come, so I don't see the families as an invasion or influx of Coordinators that we can't handle.

"The word invasion is only used for unwelcomed people, and having more coordinators from PLANT over here does not mean our way of life is threatened, since PLANT can vouch for them and provide for them without ORB having to create more jobs for them!

The only thing we have to do in extra is make sure there are enough places in schools for the children, and the ministry of education has already confirmed this. Instead, why not see this as a challenge to prove once again that ORB is a living example that coordinators from anywhere and everywhere can live peacefully with Naturals? Or are you afraid of the prospect of more hard work where itcomes to integrating the families in with our existing citizens for long-term peace? If you are afraid, then stand up and say it loudly."

They were all nodding in agreement of her view now, suddenly everyone could see what she meant, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she realised she had converted the minds of those against the idea and successfully gotten everyone to be united in a stand.

And a minister who had agreed with her stand throughout stood up and said loudly, "Besides, if the peopleORB unanimously agree that the ZAFT troops ought to have their family with them, then who are we to argue?"

Then she sat down and asked, "All in favour of bringing in the families stand up."

There was a bustle of noise and chairs scraping the floor.

She watched them and realised with joy that she was the only one seated and they were looking at her with some form of pride in their eyes, waiting for her to stand too.

So she got up from her seat to join the whole table who had gotten to their feet and smiled at her ministers, and many of them felt a strange warmth and affection in their hearts, and almost all of them wondered why nobody had ever gotten close enough to her to make her his.

But she didn't know what they were thinking, and they didn't know the truth either.

So they all agreed that the families would be welcomed into ORB too, and there were no more silly shouts that too many coordinators were not easy to handle. Orb had been handling 'too many coordinators' for as long as it had been placed on the map as an independent country, and Cagalli Yula Atha had followed her father's ideals and her own as accurately as possible.

So it was decided, one week before ZAFT would arrive, that their families would come along with them too. Housing had already been arranged at the fringes of ORB, but now, the children would go with their mothers to live amongst the ORB citizens and go to the same schools. The mothers were housewives, those who held jobs in PLANT they could not leave would fly over every weekend, and PLANT would arrange for the soldiers in ORB to meet their whole families.

As she marched through the hallways, moving on so she could get to the ORB university on time, Kisaka, marching next to her commented casually, "Job well done today, Chairman."

She ignored him but still smiled, knowing that she had deserved it, then said briskly, "How long does it take to get to the university?"

He checked his watch and said calmly, "Don't worry, we'll get to see your brother before he goes back to EA Berlin. I have to see him about something too."

Kisaka knew her very well indeed, but it wasn't a surprise since he had became her self-proclaimed bodyguard when she had ran off to become a resistance fighter, much to the dismay of her father. So now it was natural that he knew she was rushing off to catch a glimpse of her brother at the university before he flew back to EA, since he had came over here during the weekend o give a few lectures at the university, but she had been to busy to meet up with him.

When they reached the university, Kira was already by the gates, with Torii flapping up and down on his shoulders, waiting and smiling at both of them. She promptly shot out of the car and threw him a punch which he dodged, she new he's doge anyway. Then they laughed and hugged each other. It was a customary greeting for them now.

"When we'll you be leaving?" she asked as she affectionately ruffled his brown hair.

"In three hours' time," he answered, trying to block her itchy hands from getting to his hair but failing entirely. She mussed it up comletely and then laughed at his flat expression when he realised how silly she had made him look.

"Well, you'll see your pink-haired darling in a short while then," she teased mercilessly.

He ignored the jab at him and turned to Kisaka who had been patiently waiting, as steady as a rock like always.

"How's the mail, Kisaka?" he asked cheerfully.

"Oh, dreadful," the tall man replied, "She's got about fifty proposals to keep in view, so I have no idea how to reject all of them at once, perhaps I'll keep them pending and see what happens after that."

Not understanding what they were talking about, Cagalli stared at them and asked, "What are you both yapping about now?"

Kisaka looked down, yes, looked down since she was still much shorter than him, at her and said stoically, "I've been helping you filter your mail because your brother requested me to do so."

She was nodding, because she had requested that he filter her mail so the important ones would get to her as efficiently as possible too, but since when had her brother made a request like that too?

So she said, puzzled, "What kind of mail did he want you to reject so I wouldn't be able to get to it?"

Then Kira cut in and said, "Oh, those marriage proposals and date requests, you know, that kind."

Cagalli repeated casually, not quite hearing properly, "Ahh, those kind, w-wait, what?"

And then she repeated what he said to her and it clicked in. Kisaka flinched as they watch her hair bristle, but Kira looked as if he had jsut been treated to ice-cream or Christmas had came early, quite fearless, really.

"What kind?" she roared, "And since when were there any of those?"

"Since two years ago," her brother said happily, quite unafraid of her, "because there were gold-diggers and fame-hunters all over wanting your hand in marriage after finding out that Yuna Roma Seiran was killed by a GOUF in the midst of a landing in ORB during the second war when ZAFT invaded ORB."

"I didn't see any of that kind!" she cried in indignation, then she realised that obviously, having Amagi faithfully filtering her letters would mean she would never see those, which Kira had probably ordered him to do.

"Oh, yeah," Kira said cheerfully.

"You know I wouldn't accept any of course, but why'd you do that?" she demanded harshly, feeling a bit short-changed that she hadn't seen any of those for herself.

"I was doing a favour, you know," he said, suddenly looking serious and placing a hand on her shoulder which she immediately shook off so he would be a little more intimidated. It didn't quite work, he just smiled fondly at her and she felt a little lost then.

"I don't need a favour like that!" she exclaimed, smacking him on the shoulder.

"I never said the favour was for you," he said as brightly as before.

She pretended not to hear his last sentence because she was afraid of what it meant and checked her watch, then sighed and said morosely, "Alright, I best be getting back, I've got more work waiting for me."

Her twin knew she had only went there to see him before he left again, and he wisely didn't say anything about the phone conversation they had had the other time. Lacus had made him repeat the whole conversation he had with Cagalli to her, and when he refused to just to tease her, she threatened to call their wedding off. So of course he had dutifully repeated everything and then she had laughed and told him she had called his bluff.

So Cagalli hugged him goodbye and got into the car and drove off. And when he knew she was out of sight and out of earshot, he whipped out his cell, dialled a number he had long memorised and waited a few minutes for the system to make a connection with PLANT. And then his best friend answered and Kira started speaking.

'Hello, Athrun," Kira said calmly, "You wanted to know how many pending proposals she had, didn't you. Well, Amagi told me it was fifty in front of her, but he quietly slipped me a note once she couldn't see, saying it was nearly a hundred and twenty, but he didn't say so, because he didn't want her to get alarmed."

He heard Athrun curse at the other end and quickly went on.

"Oh don't get alarmed either, she probably doesn't know who the Commander of Tibet is, why'd she go and accept some random proposal and get herself hitched to him anyway? You mean the other leaders? Oh, yes, she knows who they are, but they aren't young and handsome like you, so don't worry too much. We all know who these people are, don't we? We see them all the time and nobody looks like you or even hits close, so why are you worrying? Oh yes, some are young, but they aren't handsome, and then some are handsome but they aren't young, so don't worry your head off it like what you're doing right now. Oh, and send my regards to Yzak and Dearka, Miss Hahenfuss too, Miss Hawke as well, if she's there with Shinn."

Then he smiled briefly and cut the line off, not bothering to hear anymore and he thought that his friend was a desperate idiot if there ever had been one.

By the time Cagalli had reached her office again, she was thinking of getting into her drawing room for no particular reason at all. She hadn't gone there for a very long time to sit and daydream as she had done a long long time ago when she had been a child and she had idly watched her father write letters. She had never gone in there to write letters after her father had died, except when she needed to write letters to Kira or Lacus to keep in touch with her friends.

She had never written letters to Athrun before, even when she wanted him to know that she was sorry to break the promise and marry Yuna for the sake of ORB, instead, she had told her brother and Lacus. It had been irresponsible of her, but she couldn't bring herself to write him a letter. She didn't know how to tell him that she was going to marry Yuna then.

But when she stepped into the well-maintained drawing room, wearing the dress she wore only in her home because it was too casual for functions and she didn't really like wearing dresses in front of others either, she was lost in her thoughts.

Once when they had been seventeen, Kira had gone and bought the dress for her for no reason at all, and when she had opened the large box he had silently passed to her and seen the beautiful sea-green dress with it's orange sash, and she had to fight back tears very furiously.

She had worn the same sea-green dress with the orange sash two years ago and had miserably finished the letter to Kira and enclosed a ring with it.

Now, she hadn't wanted to remember the events two years ago, but the drawing room and the dress she now wore again evoked so many memories that she couldn't resist coming in again just to rememeber what it had been like once.

She passed by the same desk she had used to write on two years ago and walked to the calendar where she checked the number of days left. Athrun and the families would arrive a day after the ZAFT troops in five days time, and although she knew where her heart lay, she was a little unsure of what it would be like to see him in ORB again.

Then she sighed, although it wasn't an unhappy one, and went back to the work waiting for her.

On Monday, Cagalli signed the treaty that reconfirmed that the ZAFT troops were allowed to bring their families over to ORB. The second referendum the government carried out showed that ORB's citizens were as warm-hearted as she thought everyone ought to be, they were thoroughly in approval that the ZAFT troops' families should be allowed to come to join the soldiers too. Kisaka and Amagi sent her hundreds of letters the ZAFT troops had written in for her in their gratitude. Some had even enclosed their names and pictures of their families which she pinned on a board in her office and liked to look at when she had free time. They weren't just random nameless soldiers, she knew their names now, they were like friends to her now. She could even rememeber their names even though she recognised them only through photographs they had sent.

On Tuesday, she visited schools to accede to their requests and talked to the children who picked flowers especially for her. Her bodyguards had to deal with all the children who were clambering to talk to her, and Rainie was like one of them, giggling and throwing her cards up everywhere when she played their card games with them. There was so much pollen in the flowers they had picked along the fields for her that she couldn't stop sneezing, but she laughed and hugged them and promised she would treasure their little gifts. She did, she really did. The flowers had wilted to brown fragile pieces, but were still arranged beautifully in jars and pots around her room. She still couldn't stop sneezing though.

And then magazines and newspapers everywhere published a picture of Cagalli wearing the dress Kira had given her, holding hundreds of flowers and surrounded by thousands more in a sea of glorious colours, and she was featured smiling like she had never done for the camera before. The same photograph was still featured everywhere, it had suddenly became her most famous photograph akin to Lacus' potrait of the songstress singing with a background of white, pure windmills in PLANT. And people started addressing her as 'Princess' once more. She tried to tell them otherwise, but they just smiled and continued to do so.

On Wednesday, she appeared to be interviewed by the broadcasting station, making a speech why ORB had agreed to sign the extended treaty. She had done this to reconfirm the new decisions in ORB so the people would have complete faith in the government and her to support the coming of the ZAFT troops and their families. The people at the station made such a fuss out of her that she was embarrassed, and Kisaka proudly told her that her father would have approved of her as the rest of ORB did. She couldn't stop smiling like a fool that day. And when she went home, she ran into the drawing room and pulled open a drawer to look a a picture of her father locked securely there.

And then she remembered everything about him and wept, but it wasn't the way she had done when she had been sixteen and left ORB knowing he would stay behind to die for all of them. It wasn't the kind of wailing and misery she had felt then. That day, she just wept.

On Thursday, she received a call from Yzak Joule's fiancée, Shiho Hahenfuss, who she had only met once or twice. She liked Shiho though; the lady was obviously very intelligent and had some rare kind of openness about herself and her own surroundings that made Cagalli like her even more. She hadn't said anything much, just called up and said that Yzak wanted Cagalli to know that he approved of her too but was too afraid to say anything himself, and then Cagalli heard some angry screeching in the background that sounded like Yzak Joule before Shiho calmly said goodbye and put down the phone, effectively cutting off the background disturbance.

On Friday, The ZAFT troops arrived, and she personally stood at the grounds in a salute as they all marched and stood in formation and saluted too. ORB had celebrated their coming by throwing a holiday that night, and Cagalli had accepted the invitation to visit the ZAFT troops in their quarters where she had literally been picked up and tossed into the air as the coordinators cheered. She had made friends with a few of them who had talked to her; one of them was Lunamaria's friend from training school who had eventually become the bridge officer who replaced Meyrin when Meyrin had defected from ZAFT two years ago. That night, Cagalli woke up and tried to recall the blonde girl's name but simply couldn't' because she had one too many drinks, so she gave up and went back to sleep.

Then on Saturday, she woke up earl and had the usual Cabinet Meeting, and then it was over in three hours and Kisaka was taking her by her elbow and asking her to get ready to go to the grounds to receive the ZAFT troop's families and ETERNITY's Chairman.

He heart was pounding like a drum and she was sure everyone could hear it as she rushed into her room and threw off her Emir suit and replaced it with her military suit, tying the braids and adjusting the badge and pins impatiently before she rushed down to meet Kisaka. Amagi stared in mock-horror at the white pants she was wearing and told her to change into the white skirt and dark-grey stockings with black heels that had been made as an alternative for females that she was supposed to wear originally, and she thought she'd humour him and went to do it.

He told her she looked strangely lovely in military jacket and skirt, but she couldn't care less about what anyone would think of her when she was wearing the kind of garb similar to Murrue Ramius' uniform when the lady had been the captain of the Archangel.

The bodyguards drove Kisaka and her to the extensive port where the shuttles would arrive, and as they drove, she couldn't sit still and kept fidgeting about until she irritated even herself. The ZAFTies had already assembled in full uniform and in proper formation as they waited to receive the newcomers who would join them in ORB, and she could sense the air of excitement palpitating around and saturating the air. Then the shuttle arrived above them to make a landing, and the winds it created were so strong it swept away a few berets and hats of the ZAFT troops and made their hair windswept in the breeze.

Then the doors of the shuttle were thrown open, and children and men and women were rushing out by the hundreds and shouting in joy when they saw members of their family standing at attention in formation.

Cagalli, now at ease, watched them breaking out of formation, even the stern-looking Section Leaders, to run and hug heir families which had followed them all the way from PLANT.

Then she saw him step out with the last few people on board in the midst of the madness and joy and noise going all round her.

Nobody saw what happened next; they were far too busy with their own families and shouting in jubilation as they hugged each other in joy. Had they seen it, they would have just stopped to stare.

She had been standing still, but continued to look everywhere in the crushing crowds for him, and then she spotted him standing some distance in front of her, holding his briefcase in one hand staring right at her, right in all the chaotic mess of people running and shouting around them.

She stared at him too, standing as if she were frozen and as still as a statue, not making a single movement at all, and then suddenly, she was crying out his name and he heard her very clearly even if the world around them was a mess of colours and sounds.

And she was racing towards him as fast as she could in her heels, and then he carelessly tossed his briefcase onto the ground and caught her tightly when she ran and threw her arms around him.

* * *

Author's notes:

This has to be one of my favourite chapters. I hope you liked it as much as I did.


	23. Chapter 23

Disclaimer: I own nothing of GS/GSD and everyone knows that already, so go on and R&R&R, please, just so you can make my day!

* * *

Chapter 23 

Kira had been right when he had said she would be happy, Cagalli thought dryly, almost like he had a crystal ball swathed amidst his precious computers and stashed somewhere in his garage or something.

As soon as she had gotten to Athrun and leapt at him in a tight embrace, she thought time stood still as he held her too, but Athrun had gently broken the hug and saluted as Kisaka made his way to them and winked before saluting in return.

They had gone back to her office before the rest of the troops, leaving them all to resettle when they were done embracing their loved ones and she had offered to give him lodging in a separate, private house near the PLANT embassy building somewhere near ORB's government office.

Her house was near the ORB office of course, he knew that. Athrun had lived there before as Alex Dino and had liked the large but cosy manor her father had left behind for her. Now they were sitting in the dining room working separately but in comfortable silence. She had invited him there for dinner a day after he had arrived, and now it was like his second home. She didn't mind of course, in fact, she had been the one who had made it his second home. He was invited there so often that she was sure the moths were already chewing the carpet in his assigned house.

Two weeks had passed so quickly she didn't even realise it was gone. And then the letter from Kira and Lacus had came shortly after and Cagalli and Athrun would go to PLANT to attend their wedding.

The whole issue of Kira and Lacus' wedding was frankly very foreign to Cagalli. She had arranged to arrive in PLANT earlier than Athrun on purpose, although she had agreed to take the same flight as him, but then she had chickened out and snuck out early in the morning with a few pieces of clothing and the gown they had sent over for her in a suitcase.

So now she sat in the shuttle alone, left to her thoughts and couldn't help recalling the conversation they had had three days ago and didn't know whether to cry or laugh.

He had been drinking his coffee very quietly, working steadily, while she similarly worked on editing a proposal she would submit in two weeks time, not that she had to rush it out, just that she liked to finish her work in advance, and then Athrun had suddenly spoken and surprised her.

"We'll go to PLANT together."

It wasn't a question, but it wasn't an order either, it was more of a statement than anything else.

Lacus had written an invitation for both of them to turn up at Kira and her wedding, and of course, Cagalli really didn't need an invitation since she had known a long time ago that they were getting married. But Lacus had kindly written out an invitation especially for her and Athrun in her lovely cursive handwriting, the type Cagalli would have taken ages to do, and Lacus had even sent over a dress for Cagalli to wear as her maid-of-honor.

She hadn't fancied wearing pink, but Lacus was wearing pink that day so thankfully Cagalli would be spared. Instead, she was handed a white dress, not quite reaching her knees with sleeves that were such glimmering gossamer that she couldn't resist stroking it to feel its lovely texture.

She made sure nobody saw her admiring the dress though; she'd be too embarrassed to show she actually liked it. Perhaps Lacus had knew that when she had personally picked it out and sent it over for Cagalli to have.

Athrun didn't have anything sent over to him even though he was to be Kira's best man, obviously because Kira wasn't quite bothered with clothes and he knew that Athrun would take care of his attire anyway.

And then he'd just casually said, "We'll go to PLANT together.'

So she had gaped and sputtered, "No, we can't! People will think it's fishy that we're so chummy with each other and then we'll have to go on an interview and explain ourselves again!"

He looked at her and smiled innocently.

"Precisely," he said calmly, while she glared daggers at him.

"Why'd you want that kind of situation anyway?" she asked, thoroughly bewildered.

"If we don't tell people now that we're seeing each other, they'll be very shocked when we suddenly get married, and then it'll be an even bigger scandal since they had no prior knowledge of what was happening at all," he explained briefly.

"Ah, that is quite tru-" she said thoughtfully, then she jumped and cried furiously, "Hey, who said we were getting married?"

He just looked at her and smiled more, and she could sense it wasn't the right time to say anything more, but she persisted and said in her most authoratative voice although they both knew there was a little hint of a pleading tone in it, "Let's just do as I say and go separately."

And then he smiled and she sighed in relief but a second later, he said mildly, "No."

Gaping at him, she wanted to punch him and his stupid ego.

"You won't give up, eh?" she said in her most dangerous voice. When she used her best mafia-voice, those around her would tremble, but he didn't. Damn him.

"I could say I'll surrender and we can go separately if that makes you happy," he replied blithely, "but I'll sneak off with you anyway, and then we'll still leave ORB and go to their wedding together."

Cagalli looked carefully at Athrun, leaning back in his chair, really quite relaxed and staring at her quite calmly, and then she realized he wasn't joking. So she had given up instead, but then last night, she had packed her bags and set her alarm clock at three in the morning.

And then she'd snuck off first thing before anyone noticed and gotten to the shuttle-grounds all by herself, although she was an admittedly, very bad driver. But most people weren't on the road at four in the morning, so she had been quite alright as a whole.

Then she had requested to take the shuttle, the earliest one so she'd get to PLANT before he woke up and realized she had gone without him, he could take the next one for all she cared, she was still edgy when they were together, she didn't want the whole world finding out anything and publicizing anything at all. He didn't mind, he had made that very clear ages ago, but she was shy about the whole thing, she really didn't want anyone except Kira and Lacus to know.

So there she was, sitting in a shuttle by herself, stupidly staring out of a window and counting down the two hours it would take to reach PLANT from ORB. She half-wished she hadn't been so stubborn and risked going together with him so she would at least be able to talk to someone, but since she was already here, she'd just grit her teeth and bear with it.

And then Cagalli leaned against the seat and closed her eyes, thinking that she could get a bit off shut-eye while she was there, and she would have dozed off while the shuttle took off if she hadn't heard a dry cough next to her and felt something slide into the empty seat next to her.

She opened her eyes in shock, since she was supposed the be its only passenger and found herself staring straight at a pair of green eyes.

"Athrun," she said in absolute horror.

"Cagalli," he mimicked humorlessly.

"How dare you," they began furiously at the same time, and then she threw up her hands in exasperation while he grimaced very terribly. They paused, breathing heavily and then they began at the same time again.

"-take off without me," he demanded.

"-come along with me," she snapped.

And then they glared at each other and the flight attendant who had thankfully been in the captain's compartment came out with a gigantic smile, obviously not noticing they were about to murder each other and said happily, "Ah, now that Chairman Zala is here, we can take off!"

"You knew about this?" she shot angrily at the hapless attendant.

"B-but why wouldn't I?" the man stammered, "Didn't you arrange to take the same flight as Chairman Zala?"

"Yes, she did, she just forgot, we'd like to be left alone now, thank you," Athrun interrupted swiftly.

She waited impatiently for him to disappear out of sight and earshot and turned to him in a semi-rage, hissing just in case anyone was eavesdropping. "How'd you do it anyway, you, you-?"

He laughed mirthlessly as if to mock her and she wanted to claw at him and his green eyes, but then he pressed himself close to her until their faces were almost touching, ignoring her instantaneous blush and said calmly, "I thought you might try a few stunts, so I slept in the shuttle grounds all night, woke up when I knew the first shuttle was open for service, and then when I saw you sneak there, I followed you in."

Cagalli wanted to smack his handsome face silly, but then she stopped herself and asked desperately, "Why'd you have to go to PLANT with me at all costs anyway?"

He looked at her with something she recognised as tenderness in his expression, and then it grew serious and he said softly, not trying t o start moving away even though they were dangerously near, "I told you I'd be with you for always."

And then she couldn't be furious with him like she had wanted to be and sighed resignedly and kissed him first with her own free will, praying inwardly that the attendant wouldn't come in. He didn't, so they continued.

When they got off at PLANT, she was awakened by him tapping lightly at her shoulder and saying that they had arrived. Grumbling to herself, she stretched in her seat, pulled up her luggage and moved raggedly after him very listlessly, quite forgetting that a while ago, she hadn't been able to be apart from him for more than a few seconds. He didn't seem to mind her sudden lack of interest in him, he only chuckled and walked slowly by her side as they alighted.

By the time they had reached the ground, she saw Kira waving at both of them, Lacus already running towards them and laughing as Cagalli shot towards her and hugged her.

"Are you ready for the wedding?" Lacus asked sweetly.

"I should be asking you that, since you're the bride," she retorted.

"I've been ready a long time ago," Lacus said thoughtfully, then giggled when Cagalli smiled knowingly at her and then turned to Kira saying excitedly, "Let's go back and let me see what the place looks like, I've been anticipating this for a long time too!"

The house they had bought was truly wonderful, the kind with white picket fences, reddish-brown bricks and flowers blooming everywhere, glorious beyond anything. Kira's marriage to the idol of PLANT had been a fairytale the minute they had announced they were getting married, even the PLANT Supreme Council members would personally turn up for their ceremony, and it was to be broadcasted to the whole of PLANT.

Kira and Lacus hadn't really wanted their wedding to be in such epic porportions, but then they didn't mind that PLANT wanted to see their princess getting married off too. Lacus had been interviewed so many times about the wedding to be held the very next day that she could memorise exactly all the answers that she had given. As Cagalli wandered around in the large yet cosy house, she heard Athrun standing next to her, mutter, "Damn dog."

"What?" she said in confusion, wondering if he'd lost his marbles.

"I said, damn dog," Athun said more loudly for her sake, and then she looked carefully at the exquisite vase he had been glancing at and saw that its side was suspiciously wet.

"Dog?" she criedd excitedly.

"We couldn't resist getting one immediately when we returned to PLANT", Kira explained helplessly as Athrun glared at him, "We need your help toilet-training it, Lacus and I have no idea how to start."

"Then why'd you get it?" Athrun asked furiously.

"Like I said, we couldn't resist," Kira muttered ashamedly, "Ah, but it's a good dog, it won't be a naughty thing, but we couldn't bear to scold it, because Lacus doesn't really know how to do anything except cuddle it and I only know how to train mechanical pets like Tori and then-"

"Where is it?" Cagalli burst out, unable to contain her excitememt.

"Backyard," Lacus cut in, grinning at Athrun who looked a little miffed that he had to help them train their dog when it was theirs and not his.

But he followed Cagalli who yelped in excitement and charged through the house into the backyards where she spotted a blondish, almost white retriever sleeping and lazing around in the sun. The dog pricked up its ears, stood up and immediately trotted over, whereby she squealed and started ruffling its fur and hugging it. And then it tried to lift up its leg to sprinkle on her, but Athrun glowered and strode towards it, shooing it away where it retreated into a corner and whined piteously.

"Why'd you do that?" she said amusedly.

"You're not his territory," he said indignantly while he pushed away the dog that was rubbing itself comfortably against his leg like it was a scratching post and then trying to go back to Cagalli for a pat, " You're mine!"

"Alright you," she said resignedly, wanting to laugh and cry at the same time, "go train him then."

And then she wandered off to go find Lacus who had promised to show her the wedding gown she would wear the next day, and they spent an hour looking at the dress and talking about the guests who would go and meet them.

Cagalli could see very clearly that Lacus would look extremely beautiful in her weddding gown, it was a pale pink-whitish colour with large double straps to drift around Lacus's shoulders and arms with a delicate rose-pink pattern printed on them, the skirt full and billowing. But Lacus wouldn't wear anything on her head other than her signature gold pin because the dress itself was terribly elaborate, and Cagalli was quite sure that nobody who got married in PLANT after Lacus appeared tomorrow would ever wear a veil again. It would probably be deemed as passe. But just for the ceremony's sake, Lacus had agreed to throw a veil over her head.

Then she declined Lacus' offer to show her around the house and wandered off the extensive estate on her own again, moving like a little ghost into all the rooms and admiring the way the sun came in brilliantly but not too obtrusively, and the beautiful interior that Lacus had personally chosen.

Hearing noises from the garden, she suddenly remembered Athrun and the dog and stoof near the entrance of the backyard, looking around.

She heard him chuckling and saying encouragingly, "That's right, that's right," and then some barking and she ran over the bushes and saw him bending down to firmly remove a ball from the dog's mouth. Cagalli grinned when she saw it sit, rapt with attention, wagging its tail like a windmill and gazing at him adoringly while he laughed and patted its head, then he stood up and threw the ball again where it shot off and raced crazily after it. She considered going there herself but thought she'd remained there to watch.

So the dog raced back to him again with the terribly-mutilated ball, obviously it had been doing some chewing, and then he removed it fearlessly again and said commandingly to the dog, "Paw."

It looked at him with its tongue hanging out and pushed it out very obligingly where he took it and said incredibly seriously, "Excellently performed, Officer."

And then she couldn't help it and laughed until she had to clutch her stomach and obviously, he noticed her then, and then he coloured a little and said lamely, " I didn't really notice you."

"You address the dog like a soldier?" she gasped with laughter, and then when the dog ran up to her, she crouched down and hugged it, allowing it to lick her hands and trample over her feet in its excitement.

"First step to training a soldier is alswys adressing the soldier by his rank," he said as seriously as he had before, then he realised she was still howling with laughter and said very indignantly, "It's true! When they hear their rank, they are reminded of their position and obey commands better!"

"T-that's not it," she howled, tears forming in her helpless laughter, " N-nevermind, you don't need t-to explain."

And then she sat down and the dog promptly moved into her open lap and plopped down where she stroked it and said, "What's his name?"

"No-name," Athrun said a little sulkily.

"What makes you so sure?" she asked cheerfully, "Did Kira forget to name it?"

"No," Athrun told her, "Lacus didn't like the names he gave it and she didn't approve of the names he gave it, so they left it to you to decide."

She flopped the dog's ears back and forth playfully and considered what he had said, chewing her lip a little.

"It's yellow and white, so let's call it Souffle," she suddenly declared, and then she looked at the dog hungrily and said, "Now I want to eat it. Athrun, help me skin it, and I'll try and bake it and when can see what we can do for tea then."

He pulled her up to him, ignoring the dog that bounced of her lap with a yelp and laughed.

"Trust you to name it after a dessert," he said softly as his hands around her waist grew firmer in their grip.

"N-nothing wrong with that," she stammered, trying to look less unsure of herself.

"No, I never said there was," he continued softly, then she thought he was going to kiss her, but he expertly slipped off his hands jsut in time as Kira, whistling merrily came into the backyard and asked curiously, "How's the dog? Is it able to salute yet, Athrun?"

"No, just toilet trained, can sit when asked to, fetches a ball if told to, and offers a paw if asked for a handshake," reported Athrun authoritatively with just a hint of pride.

Admring his handiwork with the dog, Kira whistled appreciatively and said, "I thought so."

Then he chuckled and bid them both go in and wash up for tea. Souffle tried to follow Athrun in too, but he gestured threateningly at it and the dog wandered back, quite lost without its trainer.

And when they stolled in with Kira and Athrun quite happy to listen to her chatter away like a monkey, Lacus had already gotten all the food ready on the table, along with an albino-hair coloured someone Cagalli immediately recognised as-

"Yzak Joule," he said, standing up and offering her a hand. Quite at a loss for words, she mutely took his hand and allowed him to shake it firmly, then was startle dout of her reverie at meeting the famed Commander Joule in person when he let go of her hand and suddenly sneered, turning to Athrun and holding out something square and wooden.

"Yzak," Athrun greeted cheerfully, but he stopped short when Yzak shoved the thing he had been carrying in front of Athrun's nose.

"Chess, right after this," Yzak ordered, and then for the first time, Cagalli noticed a girl in the corner, long brown hair nicely tied up at the end with a surprisingly girlish pink bow.

"Shiho, you've come too!" she said in amazement.

Shiho Hahenfuss moved up to Cagalli and saluted, smiling, while Cagalli looked and thought how lovely she looked when she smiled, but then Shiho scowled very abruptly quite similar to the way Yzak had suddenly sneered, and she was quite startling to Cagalli before Shiho turned to Yzak sharply.

"Put that down and go drink your tea." she ordered him, taking the chess set out of his hands and putting it securely under her arm.

"You're not my mother," he said defiantly while Kira and Lacus watched in amusement. He still let her take the chess set away from him though.

"I never said I was; go put that down, wash your hands and we can start, I'm ravishing," Shiho said brusquely, and then she pecked him very lightly on the cheek to put him in a fairer mood, knowing that they could only start tea if she did that.

Athrun though Yzak was going to blow up, but then he did as he was told to once Shiho had threw in her trump card, grumbling to himself all the way down to the end of the hall where the bathroom was. Clearly, he didn't call the shots where his fiancee was concerned, although he probably ordered her around when it was work in ZAFT.

But Yzak Joule had matured after the first war, he wans't the haughty, bad-temepred youth a year older than Athrun who normally looked calm and composed with his snow-white hair but had a temper to match Cagalli's. He was intelligent, obviously, and he was a gentleman from what he said when she conversed with him, but clearly, his way of loving Shiho would only be appreciated by Shiho herself, who loved him in a way only he would appreciate. Perfect for each other then, she thought dryly as she watched them threaten to blow each other's mobile suits up.

Tea was terribly wonderful, Cagalli thought later, it was like being in a place where nobody had any troubles and there was so much to talk about and laugh about. Well, actually, it was in the proper sense of the word.Then Shiho excused herself very quickly after that because ZAFT had recalled her from her break to test out some new samples she had to get back to immediately, and she stole the chessboards as she hurried out of the house when Yzak wasn't looking.

Later, Cagalli was sure that the neighbours situated from very large distance away from Kira and Lacus' new house could hear the scream of rage when he got back and found that his fiancee had disappeared with his chessboard. So he excused himself too after he had calmed down a little and swore he would finish the game with Athrun in a short while's time when they could meet up again, and then he disappeared too and the four of them were left there.

By the time they were prepared to sleep at night, Cagalli was already dozing off, quite exhausted from the day's excitement, so she didn't hear when Athrun quietly came into her room, and she didn't feel anything when he kissed her on her cheek and stroked her hair, nor did she realise that he had tucked her in after that, not until the morning of Kira and Lacus' wedding arrived and she woke up to find herself in a nest of warm blankets securely swathed around her.

And then she knew.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

As Lacus moved gracefully down the aisle, her veil semi-transparent for her to see where she was going, Cagalli wanted to shout, "Stop crying!"

Almost all the females in the church, regardless of their age or how powerful they were in the society were tearing, and although it made Cagalli quite touched at their adoration and love for her best friend, they were making her want to cry too, and the heavens knew Cagalli really didn't want to cry while she held Lacus's train.

Then she saw Athrun, standing tall next to her twin who was smiling at Lacus as she joined them at the altar and the ceremony started. Cagalli kept trying not to look at Athrun even though she would have liked to, he was just as well-dressed at Kira and his hair had been neatly combed. The ceremony went on and at the end when the minister pronounced her brother and Lacus as husband and wife and Kira flipped the veil delicately over to kiss a blushing Lacus, the whole church erupted into cheers and applause.

Cagalli had enjoyed watching her brother get married to her best friend, but she was terribly hungry by then, so in retrospect, she enjoyed the wedding lunch more. People kept stopping by to compliment Lacus and her on their gowns and the whole works, but she didn't quite care even if she thanked them politely for their kind words.

In comparison though, when Kira left Lacus' side for a minute to catch and whirl her around like she was a young girl, and smiled and told her she was very beautiful, she blushed so madly that she had to punch him on his shoulder and say he was talking rubbish again. But he only laughed and pushed her to where Athrun was standing, whispering something only she could hear, but she caught it fairly well and heard him say, "He'll make you happy."

And Athrun was holding a conversation with some people, including Dearka Elseman, Mirallia Haww and Yzak Joule, who was holding onto Shiho firmly in case she wandered off which she was quite prone to doing. So she joined into their conversation and was at so much ease that she was quite surprised when it ended and she suddenly felt very weary.

By the time the ceremony was over, all of them were exhausted, all except Kira and Lacus who had already greeted the guests and gone off to some exotic island for their honeymoon, the name of which she couldn't quite remember and didn't want to try too hard doing either.

As she stumped into the dressing room, now empty because the others had finished changing into more causal clothes and gone home, she flipped off her heels, threw them into a corner and dropped very ungracefully into the couch in the room, or so she thought.

She heard a pained, "Hey!" and realised that she had dumped her entire weight onto Athrun, and she immediately scrambled off in shock, saying hurriedly, "Sorry, didn't notice you there."

He had been tired out too and dozed in the dressing room for the last twenty minutes, but then she had came in and woken him up by basically collapsing on him.

But then his blurry vision cleared as he shook himself to rid his head of the sleepiness and gazed at her while she tried not to look stupid sitting next to him right after she had collapsed on his lap.

Then he smiled suddenly and took a hand of hers which suddenly felt quite limp, saying softly, "We're leaving for ORB together aren't we?"

Just to spite him, Cagalli wanted to shake her head furiously and say, "No, it's bad enough we had to come here together unlike what I planned for," but she found herself nodding and saying instead, "Alright."

A week had passed almost incredibly quickly after they had gotten back from PLANT, and she thought for the gazillionth time that week that her brother had been absolutely right when he had whispered into her ear.

She thought of what her brother had said during his wedding and stopped looking at the paperwork to glance up and see Athrun at the other end of the table with a line of concentration between his eyebrows that made him look a little fierce.He had been typing maniacally on his QUINd, the way she did when work was concerned.

He sensed her staring at him from the far end of the work table and stopped typing to stare at her too, and then he smiled suddenly, making her turn red in embarrassment.

A knock saved her from having to explain why she had been ogling at him, and she called "Come in!"

A second later, Rainie had marched in and bowed to Cagalli then to Athrun, but she saluted as well, because she was suddenly fascinated with the military drills after ORB and ZAFT had started the military exercise, and just to humour the young girl, he grinned and saluted too.

She chirped brightly that the troops were requesting to see Chairman Zala as soon as possible so they could have some extra-intense training, and abruptly turned to Cagalli who had resumed concentrating on her papers and asked pleadingly, "Can we all go train too, Chairman?"

Cagalli stopped flipping the sheaf of paper and sighed in mock-weariness, then laughed and said, "Alright, we'll all go and train for the next few days if you want to up your combat skills. Just prepare my paperwork and pass it to me first before you go."

The girl leapt a few feet into the air and whooped in excitement, then she dashed out, slamming the door and they heard her shouting to Goebbels to get ready all the paperwork for the next few days.

Athrun snorted in amusement and turned to Cagalli at the far end of the table who was twitching in silent laughter.

"Are all your bodyguards like that?" he said.

"No, only Rainie, that's why she's my favourite." Cagalli declared, laughing out loud, then she said conspiratorially, "Oh but don't say that in front of them, they'll think I'm biased."

He laughed too and asked seriously, "Are you sure you want to let your bodyguards watch me do my work? It's not quite fun, you know."

"That's not the point, Athrun," she interrupted brightly; "They've wanted to learn something ever since Rainie was defeated in the interview, you know, all six of them, because they know they aren't as good as her in spite of her youth and inexperience. I have to pay a visit to the troops for public relations' sake too; I might as well go long. The media has been hounding for us to make an appearance near the training camps so the people can see what's going on from newspapers."

Then she stood up, arranged her papers properly and slipped them into a case and stretched like a cat before swiftly moving out of the room, but she didn't manage to escape fast enough.

As she moved past him to get to the door, he stood up and caught her hand and asked in a would-be-casual voice, "So when do we tell the rest of the world?"

She stared up at him and replied weakly when she realised he wasn't going to let go, "How do we tell them anyway?"

He thought about it for a while and answered, "I could always run into the streets and shout that the ORB chairman and I are together, how's that?"

She heard him and chewed her lip thoughtfully, and was just about to argue that it was too scandalous when she realised that he had been joshing around with her.

"Be serious, you idiot you!" Cagalli insisted, using her free hand to knock his head hard.

"No, really," he said morosely, "I think we should appear around together in public naturally more often, and people will eventually figure out what's going on in the end. Or at least, the tabloids will help them anyway."

It was quite feasible actually, and Cagalli was starting to nod her head when she suddenly thought of something and cried abruptly, "I just thought of something! Why do we even have to come into the open anyway?"

"Because suddenly getting married, which we can't hide, will make the whole world go into a major state of unrest and shock," he said calmly, still not releasing his grip on her hand.

"Since when did I say we were getting hitched?" she snapped irritably, red in the face, still trying to snatch her hand away.

"Alright then," he said seriously, "we won't get married until we've made our combined third billion then, which will be in a few months' time when we get our pay."

"You checked our accounts?' she gasped in shock, looking at Athrun who was appearing to be remarkably unruffled.

"Yes, the inheritance our parents have left behind for both of us, with the both family's fortunes together, added on to our savings all these years and inclusive of our existing wages we get for working like cows are quite sufficient to last us comfortably off until we are a hundred-and ninety-one," he said testily, producing a sheet of paper from his pocket he had gotten from the bank.

She spluttered but couldn't think of anything to say when he waved the paper in front of her nose as proof that money wasn't quite an issue either.

Then he hauled her to him and kissed her fiercely until they heard Rainie bounding up the stairs like a hungry puppy and quickly broke them apart.

When Rainie pulled open the doors, they were already prepared with their briefcases and walked out of the door like nothing had happened while she held it open.

When they were strapped into the vehicle that would take them to the ZAFT and ORB raining grounds, she turned to look at him and hissed, quietly so that the bodyguards in front wouldn't hear her, "Don't do that again!"

He turned to her and asked curiously, "Why not?"

"We'll get caught and it won't be pretty, you idiot!" she snapped, quite forgetting to keep her voice low.

"Oh," he said calmly, watching all the bodyguards turn behind to see if there was any problem, then turn back after seeing there was nothing at all.

"Aren't we planning to?" he whispered again, once they had started the car and concentrated on the driving.

"No, we aren't!" she insisted fiercely, fiddling with the seatbelt and trying to look as calm and composed like him.

"Alright then," he replied easily, and thought stubbornly, "Yes we are."

Of course he didn't say anything, he knew she would lose it and hit him or something dangerous like that, so he kept his mouth shut until they reached the grounds were identification had to be given and security checks were carried out properly.

The plans had been made very ell with proper coordination everywhere. The grounds were enclosed to the public properly so the ORB an ZAFT troops could train undisturbed in forests that would hone their styles of fighting as soldiers able to take harsh environments and guerrilla warfare, which was what Cagalli had learnt she had been a child.

She had told him before how Uzumi Nara Atha had approved of the time when she had marched into his office when she was seven to request, in front of all the ministers, that she wanted to learn self-defense too. So she had learnt fighting from Amagi, a "guerrilla toughie" she called him, and how to use a gun and a knife and bazookas, "that kind of thing" she laughed.

As they stepped out of the car in his navy suit and her maroon Emir attire respectively, they saw the ZAFT and ORB troops already at attention.

"At ease." He ordered, and they obeyed instantly.

He sighed inwardly, thinking how difficult it would be to handle them in the military style he had been trained in and to finish his paperwork all at the same time, but cheered instantly as he watched Cagalli step forward and say clearly that the Chairman Zala would, as they had requested, train them that entire day.

Well, he'd be doing it for the next ten years anyway; he might as well get started to the double workload while he was at it.

So his secretary who had been in another car took his briefcase, and a Section Leader of ZAFT led him to a tent to change into something more suitable for training the troops. He saw, amongst the uniforms hung up everywhere, the redcoat uniform which he hadn't worn for ages.

But he was handed a white and black one instead, quite similar to Yzak's, since they were of about the same ranking now, about the same as Kira's after Kira had been accepted into ZAFT as an honoury commander. But Kira was still an ORB citizen of course, just that living in PLANT made it much easier to live with Lacus. When he got out, the soldiers had broken into their companies and were sparring with each other using their knives already.

He watched as Amagi, dressed in his attire he had worn when he had accompanied Cagalli to fight with the Desert Dawn Resistance troops bark out orders to the battalions to put in some improvements they could make to the way the fought.

Amagi noticed him standing there and promptly singled out a young ZAFT officer who had been struggling to fend himself with only his knife.

"Cole there, he's a brilliant sniper," he whispered conspiratorially to Athrun, "but his knife control is terrible, which is a waste. The only reason why he could become a future redcoat is because he's unrivalled when it comes to guns and programming systems. If there were someone who came up to him and tried to stab him at a close range though, and if he were to only have a knife and no gun with him, he'd be a dead kitty by now."

Athrun watched all the soldiers sparring in pairs in front of him and muttered back to Amagi, "Shall I?"

When he saw Amagi nodding form he corner of his eye as they conversed quietly, he slipped a knife out of a weapon rack next to them and headed over to where the blonde boy was sparring with an elder female ORB officer who was thrashing him silly.

He stood in front of them and they paused, both panting heavily in their uniforms and holding their knives in their hands.

"May I?" he requested politely to the female ORB officer. She blushed like mad and nodded eagerly and stepped aside to let him spar with the Redcoat. He vaguely noticed from the corner of his eye that some pairs had actually stopped sparring to watch him duel with the young redcoat.

He held the knife lightly in his hands and watched the youth blush in embarrassment. The boy must have been mortified for being singled out, and was obviously quite young. Athrun felt a little sorry for him and asked cheerfully, "What's your name, Officer?"

The soldier stammered and answered nervously, "Nick Cole sir."

The girl who had been watching started laughing and Nick Cole spun towards her angrily, retorting, "What's so funny about my name, you?"

She placed her hand over her mouth and choked through her gasps of laughter while Athrun watched helplessly, "Your name sounds like a girl's when you string it all together, like Nicole, you know?"

The boy started blushing again because he had been beaten sorely by the girl when it came to handling the knife, but Athrun cut in, saying coolly, "I had a friend named Nicole, and he was an ace when it came to guns and knives."

His reply made the girl grow silent and the boy turned gratefully to him. He allowed himself a smile then picked up his knife in his defensive stance and ordered, "Now show me what you can do with the knife, Officer."

The boy leapt at him wildly, not even bothering to plan his line of attack or even thinking how he would handle the knife once he got close to Athrun. That was his fatal flaw, Athrun decided as he easily leapt out of the way and allowed the boy to lunge at him wildly again. He stopped the boy this time by using his own knife to knock it high until it plunged into the ground and Nick Cole was left defenceless.

He turned to the boy and said, "Well, your speed and stamina aren't bad at all, but you need to plan your attacks with better accuracy."

Then he walked to the knife, picked it up, and handed it back to the boy and said quite warmly, "Why don't you try attacking me again, but this time, aim for the areas which you think are weak spots. And before you do that, you must think of what I might try to do to avoid the knife, and then if I do avoid it, what can you do to recover without exposing your back to the enemy?"

The boy was blushing so much in awe that Athrun was tempted to call for some cold water to douse over him to see if the redness would subside, but a minute later, the boy had leapt at him again, and Athrun had to admit he was a fast learner.

The knife was held in a less clumsy angle than before, and he leapt at Athrun's knees and not the face this time, so Athrun was forced to jump into the air when the boy came darting and slicing at his knees. Obviously, the boy had taken his advice well and heeded it as accurately as possible, he was ready for Athrun's leap into the air and thrust the knife upwards when Athrun leapt upwards to avoid it, but Athrun did a back flip and kicked him from behind. He had a long way to go, but now he was on the correct path.

He lay facedown in the dirt, then Athrun tossed the knife into the ground, squatted, and pulled him up.

"Well done, Officer," he said gently, and watched the boy, now dirtied and muddy, smile shyly.

There was applause from all areas, and he realised suddenly that everyone had stopped to watch him spar.

Amagi bustled up to them and said loudly, "Alright, who wants to be next?"

There were loud whoops of assent as the soldiers clambered to Amagi and Athrun to request for help with certain quirks they showed when they handled their knives, and Athrun spent the rest of the day coaching and teaching until he didn't want to see a knife ever again.

He stumbled into a tent during the hour's break they had given the troops, and spotted Cagalli busily typing at the side. Not quite caring that he was sweating like a pig and probably didn't smell like daffodils, he strode over and stood over her until she looked up and saw him.

"Having fun?" she asked jokingly.

"It's work on top of my paperwork, how fun can it be?' he responded lightly.

"Same here," she sighed, as she snapped the QUINd shut and turned face him while seated on the chair.

"Why don't you join us at the firing range later then," he asked, watching her rub her eyes and try to rid them of the sleepiness she felt in the blazing afternoon.

Cagalli immediately paused and snorted, "I haven't been practising my aiming for two years, if I go there, I'll look like a fool." She then proceeded to stretch a little and crack her knuckles like a gangster, although she probably didn't realise that he thought it was pretty cool.

He laughed and fetched a towel to wipe away the sweat, commenting, "How bad can you have gotten?"

She cleared her throat and grinned at him, "Remember when I fired a bullet and threw away the gun at the same time?"

He stopped in his tracks and chuckled, remembering her rash ways and hotheadedness when she ha been sixteen. He looked at Cagalli and wondered if she still had as much of that as she did int the past, then concluded to himself that she had lost a little of the rashness, but was still terribly fierce in her pride. He didn't mind though. He quite liked it, actually.

Cagalli sighed as Athrun started to wheedle her into following he troops to the firing range, until she couldn't take his attempts to make her go any longer and just agreed to shut him up a little. The next thing she knew, he had grabbed her hand and pulled her out of her chair and the shady tent into the sun where they marched, now not holding hands because she pulled it away in case anyone saw, into the firing range.

The soldiers were taking turns to fire in a simulation range with the ORB firearms specialists and ZAFT crack-shots correcting their stances and trying to work out the best wy to avoid rebounds.

As far as they could see, Officer Cole's shooting was perfect. He didn't need any coaching, in fact, Amagi had requested for him to coach the others, and his shy, appealing nature made him a perfect coach anyway.

When he told Cagalli what he thought of Nick Cole, Cagalli laughed brightly and whispered teasing, but quietly so nobody would see that they were talking, "Oh, but you make a good teacher too, Chairman. Lunamaria Hawke told me that nobody, including Shinn, dared to question our authority when you lectured them."

He was embarrassed that she had heard about his stint in ZAFT, so he quickly walked forward and took a gun that a soldier offered to him, and proceeded to obtain a perfect score with the simulation game. The soldiers were gasping and pointing excitedly, quite alike the way Lunamaria, Shin and Rey had reacted when he had tried to help Lunamaria with her abysmal aiming.

Ignoring them, Athrun finished the last round, and as Amagi called to the soldiers to gather around and listen up while he explained how the Chairman Zala had managed to get a perfect round of shooting, he heard another call from the other end of the long, firing range the soldiers had formed.

"Chairman Atha's got a perfect score too!" someone cried.

The soldiers cleared away and he saw her, clad neatly in her Emir suit and holding a rifle in her hands ,clearly at the other end of the extensive line grinning at him and giving him a triumphant thumbs-up. He returned it, and Amagi roared with laughter and shouted that it was up to the soldiers to get hold of the two chairmen and learn a little shooting smarts from the both of them.


	25. Chapter 25

Disclaimer: I don't own you-know-what, so don't ask me if I'm taking the you-know-whats as mine.Since I can tell you all that Truth is going to end VERY soon, please make this worthwhile and R&R&R!

Chapter 25

So the rest of the day was spent coaching the soldiers in teams and when Kisaka finally called for a reassembling and shouted that the work for the day was done, Athrun walked into the tent where he knew nobody would see him look as dishevelled as them, and promptly fell on his back in a heap, tired out. He wasn't arrogant enough to think that he didn't have to work as hard as them in their training, but he still refused to just collapse outside where they were. He had a streak of pride in him he alwaysfelt somewhere, and now he prayed it would disappear where she was concerned.He had no time for his dignity if he still wanted her.

A few seconds later, he saw her feet coming towards him, and Cagalli collapsed on the tent's floor too, a mess like him. Her hair was ruffled a little since it was a habit of hers to mess it up in a form of concentration, and her clothes were somewhat wrinkled. But her eyes were sparkling amber, and her cheeks were flushed like roses, and hehad to stop staring at her in case she realised he was.

They remained in comortable silence for a bit, hearing each other breathe and alternating their inhaling and exhaling motions without actually knowing they were.

Then she breathlessly asked, "Why did the pervert cross the road, Athrun?"

And he thought about how random she was at times, but went along with it anyway while he panted like a dog and answered helplessly, "I don't know, tell me why."

So she giggled, rolled over to her side and flopped towards him until they were facing each other and happily cried, "Because that's where all the chickens went!"

Then he was roaring in laughter as the ridiculous joke made sense to him and asked interestedly, "Who told you a joke like that?"

She grinned at him like a child and said mischievously, "The Supreme Commander of Tibet told it to me when he came over about three weeks ago, and he told it before asking for my hand in marriage. The ring he presented was pretty nice."

He sputtered and sat up straight while she remained on the bare ground looking would-be-nonchalant.

"You've met him before and you knew that he was asking for your hand in marriage?" he cried, horrified that Kira's information had been inaccurate.

Somewhere out there, Kira was talking to somebody and pausing to sneeze and excusing himself.

She nodded very nonchalantly and rolled over on her back again so he couldn't see her face from where he was sitting. If he had, he would have known she was smiling.

"Yeah, he did, and because I liked him, I promised that if he could make me laugh, then I would have to marry him." She said calmly, trying hard not to laugh when she said this.

Athrun tried to see her better, but she flipped over on her other side, showing her back to him, so he had to ask nervously, "Did you laugh at it?"

He wanted to see her expression, but he couldn' tjolly well flip her overon her back like an omelette, could he? That would have been risky and she would have been ruffled and annoyed again. As far as he could, Athrun would go out of his way to stay out of her bad books.He had to be in her good books for as long as possible.

She chuckled and said, "Well, it was funny, wasn't it? I mean, you laughed at it yourself, didn't you? And if Athrun Zala laughs at anything, it's got to be pretty good a joke."

When he remained frozen, staring in horror at her, she tossed herself upright and turned to him and stared at his dumbstruck face, feeling a little regretful she had told such a crass joke to someone as serious as him. Such jokes weren't meant to be told to people like him, she decided tentatively, it was more of word puns he'd appreciate, or witty things like that, not weird and cold jokes.

"It's a joke, Athrun!" she cried indignantly, and he mumbled, "I knew you were joshing me."

"Oh no, you didn't," she said bluntly, quite eager to pick a fight for the heck of it all, "And if you thought I was going to marry a guy I hadn't even seen before, then you were wrong. Kira told me all about it when I threatened to wreck his wedding while he was struggling into his suit that morning."

"Oh," he said a little dumbly, then recovered from the shock and muttered a curse under his breath.

"I'm hungry," he announced soon after as he lay there and she half-sat-half lay watching him with sleepy amber eyes.

"Dinner then?" she yawned, running a grimy hand through her hair, then she looked at it and grimaced a little.He thought she looked adorable, butof course he didn't say so.

After returning to the house he had been given and having a long and good bath, Athrun had changed out of the white and black commander outfit he was expected to show up in from then on, and he had exchanged it for a simple white shirt and dark pants then thrown on a coat and driven to Cagalli's residence.

Cagalli had offered to take him out for dinner in return for him doing that for her when they had been in EA Berlin. She had laughingly told him that she knew where they had a restaurant near a sea, and she wanted to go and pick shells for Rainie and Vino this time, so he had agreed to go with her. Of course he did, he was waiting to pounce on opportunities like these actually.

But when he turned up, she was ready, dressed in a breezy, comfortable slip and sandals with a huge basket she lugged into his car. Apparently, the restaurant she knew of never existed; she had pilfered food from the kitchens to bring for dinner at the beach. And if they asked where the food had gone in the morning,she'd say it was him.

Now, he stood and inspected the food she had placed on the table cloth she had sneaked too.

"Your table presentation gets zero," he said dryly, seeing the haphazard way she had dumped everything out.

"What were you expecting then, a candlelight dinner?' she cried very indignantly, then proceeded to pull him onto the table cloth and shoved a sandwich into his mouth before he could make a comeback.

He laughed at her quick temper and ate the hastily-made sandwich while she kicked off her sandals and lay back comfortably, enjoying the night breeze.

"Why did you bring us here?" he said curiously.

"No reason in particular actually, I just wanted to eat somewhere under an open sky." she answered briefly while she stuck her hands up into the air and traced a couple of random cloud outlines.

He closed his eyes and heard the breeze blowing in his ears, and then he slipped a hand into his pocket and felt the ring there. He would ask her tonight, and he was sure she would agree this time.

He could hear Cagallisitting up beside him and saying quietly, "I'm going to pick some shells, so you don't have to come. Don't get wet, I'll do it myself."

"Are you sure you will pick a shell eventually?" he teased her, knowing that she took a long time to decide which shell she wanted to take even in Berlin for Lacus and her twin.

She harrumphed in displeasure and said sharply, "I'll pick a shell if it's the last thing I do! So don't come after me!"

Athrun didn't. He wanted to get ready while she picked the shells. Hs eyes were still closed, and he could hear her trotting out, barefooted, making tiny padding noises on the soft sand and a splash of water and some cries of laughter as she splashed around and played in the water, looking for shells to take home.

Sighing lightly, he opened his eyes to look at the deep-blue sky and the black clouds that drifted lazily over the moon and thought that he would practise popping the question at a rock nearby he could pretend was Cagalli, but he thought the better of it and closed his eyes again, lying back with his hands folded neatly below his head.

Then he heard a strange, foreign sound that was registering in his brain as an unknown sound. His eyes flew open as his heart started beating faster, and everything was becoming stranger and stranger, her laughter from a distance was becoming softer and softer and more sinister, and the waves crashing on the shore were becoming louder and some animals in the night were making sounds that rapidly became warnings to him and he leapt up and stood in a protective stance, listening, listening, listening. Everthing was a mash around him, he didn't know what was what anymore, and his eyes were keen and sharp. If anyone had seen them, they would have said Athrun Zala's eyes were emerald knives at that point.

And then through the jumble and cacophony of sounds he was hearing very clearly, perhaps too clearly, he heard a very steady sound standing out beyond anything else and looked around in confusion, not knowing where it was coming from, and heard the sound echoing from somewhere nearby and pricked in his ears, and Athrun started ignoring Cagalli who was standing in the sea, her hands and legs and dress wet, asking concernedly, "Are you alright?"

Then the foreign sound was becoming closer and closer, then suddenly further and further, and he was thrown into a greater state of confusion and not knowing what was going on, he shouted urgently at her, not quite knowing even why his instincts were telling him that it wasn't safe, "Come back here! Quick!"

She looked at him and saw that he wasn't joking, so she tried to move quickly towards the shore, stumbling and tripping while on the sand in the sea, and he felt a little more relieved as he saw her making her way back to him. If only he could catch onto her, something solid and real,then maybe the noises around him would stop.He had flawed reasoning, but his acute senses were making it impossible for him to ignore the warning alarms going off everywhere, and he was like a beast in the wild now, knowing something was out there but going insane trying to identify it.

He was hearing a mix of strange, contradicting feelings, soma confusing blend of something like apprehension and some affection as he saw her running towards him from a distance, and then some fear that made his blood grow cold in his frozen veins, then a bit of warmth somewhere as he saw her laughing and running towards him and shouting that she knew he missed her after five minutes of being apart while on the same beach. It was insanity.

Something wasn't right; he thought furiously, there was something not correct about this place, something very wrong, something terribly off…

She was about to reach him now and was smiling as she held out her bare arms towards him, and he reached for her longingly too, because he wanted to reel her back in towards him, just in case his instincts were correct. Maybe he was being paranoid or going insane, but he really didn't care, he just wanted to take her and run and maybe something bad wouldn't happen or maybe it was just his stupid head giving them all some weird schizophrenic notion.

Then the sound he had thought he heard suddenly paused, then became instantly clear, and he recognised it as a 'tic' he had heard in the background, and then it became more insistent, and he watched in horror as she too, heard it coming from somewhere and got distracted and turned away from him to face the sea and then he watched in horror as the waves built up and crashed upon the shore and the rocks in between them exploded into a fiery mess and he heard her scream of terror.

The sound of the explosion was numbing his ears and pulling his hair and clothes backwards while a tiny light grew and grew and expanded insanely in front of him and Cagalli, right in the middle of the sea she was standing in, just the space between them. He thought he saw her cry out and avert instinctively to shield her eyes form the blinding light that came beyond the sea as debris, rocks and shrapnel flew everywhere in a hail of bullets at her.

And he thought he witnessed a nightmare when he thought he saw her collapse under the boulders the explosion had thrown at her and the look in her eyes that made him roar like an unbridled beast before the ground near him exploded too and everything went black as something came flying and knocking him unconscious.

But before darkness claimed his being, he choked and his last thought was that the ring was still in his pocket and what she had said a few minutes before.

"I'll pick a shell if it's the last thing I do!"

And then there was a roar of pain he felt in his head that crashed on the rest of his body and he promptly opened his eyes and screamed in madness as the pain shot through him, and he could feel himself falling into a lifeless heap somewhere on the ground.

Athrun truly thought he was in a nightmare after that, for as long as the darkness cleared and he regained his mind to a small extent.

He heard somebody's voice he couldn't recognise saying soothingly, "It's alright now," and he thought it was Nicol before he felt someone stab his side with a sword and then he fainted again, crying out for Cagalli before he lost his consciousness.

When he reawakened, his vision was blurry, and the memory of being run through side with something made him wince in pain although he couldn't quite feel anything, but then it cleared and he saw his father sitting in a corner looking at him and glaring at him with his customary scowl. He hated, no he loathed that look. It made him feel like he never did anything right, and then he realised he hadn't protected Cagalli so maybe he deserved it.

He struggled to sit up straight, but his father snapped furiously at him, "What were you doing lying on your back and daydreaming anyway? Wake up your idea right now, and go and see what you can do about it! What do youmean Redcoat? So what about it? You mean you tied with someone in the top of your class, that would mean to say you didn't win fair and square-,"

And then his father had disappeared from the chair he had been sitting on in a room with walls and pictures of boats he had never seen before and he was thinking that he would have to try and sit up to see better.

Then a jolt of pain seized him and before he passed out again, he realised that his father had said the same thing four years ago when he had come home to find out that Lacus, then his fiancée was lost while on the Silver Wind. Then it hit him that his father had been dead for four years too, and he screamed in more terror than pain and fell back into darkness.

He was seeing blood everywhere on his hands and he was screaming but then he started laughing for no reason at all and he smeared the blood on his face and felt the warmth and the rusty stench that put some pain into his heart, but then he suddenly felt like gagging and he thought it was a nightmare and tried veryhard to sit up and wake up.

But when he struggled up again as soon as he woke, someone pushed him down and he thought he saw his mother looking down and him and smiling and then taking something and injecting it into him, and he cried out for her again and again not to go to Junius Seven until he could hear no more and scream himself no more hoarse then he already was.

Then he awoke and saw Kira and Lacus sitting by the side staring at him but not saying anything, and he struggled to sit up for the millionth time, or so he thought. He wasn't even sure if they were real.

Lacus was rushing towards him and trying to make him lie back down, but Kira had stood up to, and said tonelessly, "It's alright Lacus, let him sit up and speak to us."

He felt a large pillow being pushed behind him, and a searing pain ripped through his head, and he put up a hand to massage his temples and saw a dozen wires connected to his wrist, and then he stared in horror while Kira shoved the chair closer and said coldly, "Tell us what happened that night Athrun."

He tried to speak but found his voice hoarse, but he still tired to go on anyway, but he found that he couldn't narrate what had happened at all.

His lips were dry but his mind could see nothing but flashes of her laughing and playing n the water and the sound of the waves covering and exposing the bomb's ticking as the waves rushed up and down the shore, how he had been too late in realising what it was and the blinding light that had covered Cagalli as she screamed in pain.

Stroking his hand gently, Lacus spoke up.

"Don't be so harsh with him, Kira," She said softly, "Athrun only just woke up, he can't possibly say everything that happened two nights ago."

Two nights ago?

"What do you mean?" he croaked hoarsely.

"I'll tell you," Kira said morosely, then he put his head in his hands, something he hadn't done after the first war, but he regained his composure and said evenly although his purple eyes were suddenly a stranger's, "Two nights ago, you were with Cagalli at a beach. There was an explosion there, and you were hit by the outer-wave of the explosion where you the shockwave threw you backwards and you slammed into the cliffs behind you and were covered by the boulders and debris that collapsed on top of you. Not that we're sure that really happened,if weassumeit was a normal bomb, then that would be the most obvious case, and then I would have to question why you brought Cagalli to a beach rigged up with a bomb like what the world is doing now."

"Cagalli?" he whispered painfully.

"She's just been removed from the CCU like you," Lacus said quietly, and he painfully realised that her eyes were very weary. "Her immediate condition wasn't as bad as yours because she was protected directly next to the explosion. Apparently, the bomb used had the worst impact according to the radius around it, not according to a person's proximity to its centre.

So she was hit by a lesser impact of the explosion, and she didn't get hurt by the immediate explosion in that sense although she was also showered with debris, whereas you, who were standing further, got injured more seriously. The bodyguards who were trailing you both without her permission nearby heard the explosion and got to both of you in time to be saved before you bled to death."

He knew about the bomb quite well, he had heard of it being used before. In ZAFT, they had nicknamed it the far-near bomb where a person could reach an enemy with an explosive by planting one under his won feet, making sure the enemy was standing in the loci a measured distance from the point he was standing on.

The person who set the bomb could be unscathed if he could was standing directly on the bomb he set up and closed his eyes properly when he activated the bomb, because the explosion would cause a brilliant light to blind the enemy. Soldiers on the ground used it to reach enemies at a distance so they wouldn't have to venture too close to the enemy. Athrun was quit well-informed and had heard of these bombs before, they had been used quite extensively in the war as a matter of fact. He had never used one of those though, he fought more in the mobile suits than anything else.

Then he suddenly thought of the way she had screamed in pain as the light came rushing straight into her eyes and cried, "The light!"

"That's right" Kira said grimly," The light the explosion created by the bomb buried in the sea was a direct hit-on for Cagalli because she didn't realise it was that certain type of bomb which effectively blinded people and thus wasn't able to avoid it fast enough. She's healing from the physical injuries with less difficulty than you, but-,"

"What?" Athrun whispered.

"She hasn't opened her eyes for the past three days, even though she can talk and hear and is recovering well from the injuries," Kira forced out and then he looked away, andvLacus looked away and remained silent, biting her lips until they became chalky-white.

He could scarcely believe what as happening and how quickly it had gone so wrong in a mere few seconds.

His eyes were swimming in tears as he felt a pain shred through him, although they weren't from his injuries. Fighting to regain stability, Athrun looked up at both his friends and asked shakily, "Is she awake now?"

"Yes," Lacus replied, suddenly morewan and weary than ever, "The drugs didn't have much effect on her after the first time she woke up during the operation to lose her wounds; she went through the rest of it without anaesthesia. From then on, she's been awake except when we force her to take short naps. She's been crying all the time, but she still can't open her eyes. The doctors tried to force it open after they realised using a machine could really blind her, and she made sure her hands were tied up so she wouldn't resist, but something in her doesn't trust them,and she can't open her eyes. It's almost like part of her is still in shock and in defensive-reaction to thelight. That's the doctors' theory anyway, we don't know for sure.Maybe she'll open her eyes soon, we don't know."

He sat up straight and ignored the pain gushing through his chest and body and said firmly, "I want to see her now."

She gazed at him and saw that his eyes were cold and determined even if he had an inscrutable expression on. Then Lacus looked at Kira who had nodded and moved to his friend to help him stand. The team of doctors had repeatedly used stronger and stronger doses of anaesthesia on Athrun during the operation because he kept waking up to scream Cagalli's name, and she knew that they had advised them not to let him stand as soon as he had woken up, but she knew Athrun had the willpower to resist any orders of that sort. He was still bleeding, she could see that even with the liberal amount of bandages they had used, but Athrun obviously didn't care.

So she joined Kira and helped him to get Athrun up and out of bed, trying not to notice how frail he was when he tried to stand and how he managed to walk only after a few tries.

By the time they got to Cagalli's ward, Athrun could walk almost normally without their help again. She noticed how he winced when he thought nobody noticed, but he never complained, only steadily made his way to where Cagalli was, and then Lacus silently prayed that something would happen to change them and mould their lives into something good again.

Kira spoke to the bodyguards outside the room and they left soon after although most of them looked at Athrun with hatred and suspicion in their eyes.

She reached out and clung onto Kira, preventing him from following Athrun into the room and he nodded and led her away, watching Athrun grip the door handle and turn it to make his way in very unsteadily, and her heart wept, and Kira gently placed her head on his shoulders without even needing to look at her face.


	26. Chapter 26

Disclaimer: I don't own GS/GSD, and golly gee, don't we all know it.

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Chapter 26

He closed the door and turned back to the bed a distance away in the large room she lay in.

Hobbling slightly but managing to move quite swiftly, Athrun passed by a panel of mirrors and glanced at himself. A band-aid was wrapped securely around his forehead and his hospital shirt was open to reveal three-quarters of his chest covered in clean bandages. But these were slightly stained even when the bandages were terribly thick. His wounds hadn't been unlike what the doctors and surgeons had described them as. It would be a bonus if he wasn't scarred.

Ignoring the disturbing sight, he turned to Cagalli who was lying, covered up to her chin by a blanket and surrounded by thousands of flowers from all over ORB. Likewise, she had a bandage, but it was only at the side of her head, and compared to his own, hers would be akin to a scratch. Lacus had been right in saying that she wasn't physically as injured as he was, but then her eyes, they were shut, almost as if they were reacting to something thrown at her face.But he was prepared that she wouldn't be able to open her eyes and see him, but he could see her breathing as her chest rose up and down wearily and her eyes were closed very tightly.

Moving over with some difficulty, he sat on the chair next to her bed and said softly, grateful that a little of the hoarseness had disappeared from his voice, "It's me, Cagalli."

She turned her head towards the sound of his voice and he saw a tear slide down and wet her pale cheek before she tried to pull up the blankets higher, knowing he could see even if she couldn't and then she whispered, "I know. I heard you come in without Kira and Lacus just now."

There was something terribly proud still in her. He knew that she had a streak of independence and free-spirited ways, almost wilfulness even when he had met her for the first time, but now there was only a shadow left, but pride was still evident. She refused to let him think she was weak even when her eyes were as good as blind, and his heart ached, even more so after he had lost his mother. Cagalli's lips were pursed slightly, and he wept inside as he saw the bitterness and her lost innocence.

Staring at her and trying to ignore the pain ebbing through him, he reached for her tiny hand, now wrapped with a bandage and murmured, "It still hurts, doesn't it?"

Cagalli felt him stroking her hand even through he thick layer of bandages and whispered back, "Not so much now, it's healing well, the doctors said, and I don't feel so much pain now, but it's not the wounds there, it's my-,"

And she choked and sobbed once and said in a muffled voice made soft by the effort not to cry, "I think I can't see."

Then she sat up on her own and the blankets slid down to reveal her arms with numerous bandages, although they weren't very serious, he could see. She had a slight cut at the side of her cheek, and he gently tucked her hair behind her ear and carefully inspected it. It would heal soon, but he knew the traumatic experience wouldn't fade so quickly, not with someone who lived for the sun being forced into perpetual darkness. Few of the cuts were deep wounds, but she wasn't in such bad shape yet, except for her eyes.

He took her head in his hands and guided it gently to his chest where she suddenly wept and laughed at the same time, and Athrun could hear her mangled words.

"It's stupid, really," she chortled through her tears and laughter, "I mean, at least can still walk and can sue my hands and can hear and speak even if I- I can't s-see. Maybe I can still lead and fulfil my father's dreams for ORB and m-maybe if I can't see because I can't open my eyes than it isn't so bad because I still have my brother and Lacus and my hands and feet left. I'm not a princess, I can s-still-,"

Cagalli was rambling on and on in her effort to make light of the situation and she sobbed and giggled at the same time until Athrun had to turn his head away, his being swathed in agony and he said loudly, "Enough!"

She was trembling now, and her hands were trying to grasp onto something she could feel around for, anything, and he took her hands swiftly and pressed them around him.

Then he stroked her head and said softly, "I'm sorry."

"Why?" she sobbed in bewilderment.

"We were like this on the Archangel once, remember? I said I would protect you, but I couldn't," he murmured, feeling guilt stab him everywhere.

"It's not your fault," she was saying with an old shadow of the fierceness and pride she used to hold in her voice, having tired herself out with crying, and then he could see her valiantly try to force open her eyes but she couldn't, and tears were flowing out again as she insisted weakly, "I'm Cagalli Yula Atha, I can use a gun as well as any other soldier can, so I can protect myself. I don't need anyone to help me like that."

Then she pushed him away although she stumbled when she lost her balance and felt blindly for the blanket then pulled it over head so he couldn't see her.

"I want you to go away," she said, her voice muffled again. He knew she was termbling somewhere underneath and Athrun stared at her form hidden under her blanket.

"Why?" he said once he had found his voice again. The last time he had cried was when she had pointed a gun at him and screamed, "Why did you kill Kira?"and then she had tossed away the gun and they had eventually cried themselves hoarse.

"Get ready to tell the whole world what happened," she muttered somewhere under the blanket, "Now the ORB government has sent a whole team to investigate what happened and what caused the explosion. So far, everything leads back to you, and you better get ready to explain yourself on international news. My advisors have agreed that I can be excused form it since I appear to be the victim in this case."

The sheer stupidity of it appalled him and he cried, "You know I didn't activate that bomb!"

He watched the form swathed in the blankets helplessly and she said emotionelessly, "I know you didn't. But the rest of the world won't listen until you can prove that at nine twenty-six pm two days ago, you did not attempt to trick Cagalli Yula Atha into following you to a beach and pre-planting a distance bomb to assassinate her. The reports have proven that you drove us there, since there were witnesses along the road. And you are believed to have further instigated the whole plan by bringing the ORB Supreme Commander at the exact time the explosion took place."

Rubbing his temples as a headache shot through him, he asked, frustrated, "I don't care what they think as long as you know the bomb was a freak accident! So what if we were together like the last time on a beach and the situation was similar to the other time when we were in Berlin? There are such coincidences, you know it's true! As long as you know I would never hurt a hair on your head, it's enough!"

"No it isn't," she retorted from underneath, "Because PLANT is calling for an investigation of their own to protect your reputation and theirs, and ORB is in a tense situation now.They won't allow me to protect you either, because they think I'm desperate to keep things hidden for the better good of long-term peace and also because I may be biased since I admitted we were comrades before. You know I won't be allowed to protect you, and you know I can't. And you know as well as I do that two political leaders getting hurt in an explosion doesn't mean flowers and blue skies either."

Nothing he said after that would persuade her to emerge from under and he couldn't bear to take away the blankets, because he knew she was crying underneath, and nothing he said would make her respond and talk to him anymore, so he left. He ignored the bodyguards who flexed their muscles threateningly at him and Athrun made his way back to the ward where his secretary who had been waiting for him to come back, and she morosely showed him the millions of letters he had gotten from people all over the world.

Some believed that he had tried to repeatedly kill the ORB Chairman to take control of ORB for himself and had purposely hurt himself to try and defect attention away from himself as the true instigator of the assassination attempt, some believed that he was truly innocent and a victim of bad circumstances and freak accidents, and he closed his eyes in frustration and agony and then he told his secretary to burn the lot of letters. She took them away without a word to offer for once. He appreciated the silence. He needed to think, and he had to think properly.

Then when Athrun was sure that his secretary had left, he slipped himself under the covers the way he had watched Cagalli do and drifted off to sleep in his troubled thoughts. But he made sure he took some pills before he slept, he didn't want to wake up screamingin terror, not knowing whether what he had dreamed was reality or false.

But he had told the secretary to burn the letters.

He didn't care anymore.

Two weeks later, fully recovered and acting as if he hadn't been in a coma for two days straight, Athrun sat at his desk, completing the paperwork for the day. His secretary was frightened of his productivity, she thought it was almost as if nothing had happened. Athrun caught her telling the receptionist that, but he turned away and didn't say anything,bu he locked himself in his office for a while and stared out of the window where it was raining without a single pause. He knewCagalli wascrying somewhere and hiding herself because she was too proud to admit she didn't know what to do any longer.

And something in him felt as if it had been wrenched out.

Kira and Lacus had left to return to Berlin, they couldn't hold off their work any longer than they already had. Although Cagalli knew her twin had sneaked into the site held under heavy investigation, effectively using his status as ORB university's head of Science and Engineering, she didn't say anything.She didn't know what he was up to, but something in her had hope left. She would try and open her eyes every now and then, but Cagalli would remeber the light and something would trigger off and her eyes would remain firmly shut.Her eyes were in perpetual shock.

Before Kira had left, he hugged her tightly to him and told whispered to her to be safe. She knew he had taken a piece of the explosive with him in secret, although it was a terrible crime to be removing evidence from the site. He didn't say anything; she knew he would be spending sleepless nights in his laboratory for the next few weeks to save them all.

And she knew Lacus looked at her with sad eyes even though she couldn't see the sorrow on Lacus' face. She could see it in Lacus' voice and see it in the heavy footsteps that Lacus walked, like she was carrying a burden. Cagalli's ears took up the lost sightand for a few days, she couldn't bear listening to anything for more than a few minutes, she wasn't used to all the sounds she could pick up.

Cagalli was grateful to both of them, but she refused to listen to them and go for the operation and in the end, they didn't force her. Nothing they said would make Cagalli more stubborn than she had become, and she refused to go for any operation to force her eyes open after the scan results had came back.

The surgeons had ran a laser-scan over her eyes and had confirmed that her eyes were indeed unscathed in their sockets, but her eyes wouldn't open because they were in a permanent state of shock. When the light had erupted blindingly, she had blinked and shielded her eyes instinctively, turning away just in time before she was truly blinded and her pupils were burnt with the cornea, which was the aim of the bomb. But try as she might, she could not force them open with her own free will and would become frustrated, crying with the effort to reopen her eyes.

The surgeons had offered to operate on her eyes to force them open since mere physical methods seemed to be ineffective, she didn't trust them or she would recall the light and something would die in her again, but they were afraid that forcing the eyes open with machinery would blind her if it was overtly forceful and her eyes, rolled back at her head like she was sleeping, would not be able to respond to the brain's signals to rotate correctly, and then she would really be blind. She was too afraid of the risks, she refused their offer flat.

Nothing was announced to the world yet. The only knew that she had recovered completely and were waiting eagerly if not impatiently for PLANT's comments on ETERNITY's Athrun Zala's behalf. In fact, there were talkshows going on, some politician's were even asked to comment on the brewing issue which some did, although nothing much could be said. Nobody took sides either, they weren't enough of idiots to do so.

And nobody knew she was writing out her work manually, cooped up in her office everyday with Rainie faithfully reading out the documents to her. Her handwriting was a mess even though she tried to align her writing without her eyes to see where her pen was going. Cagalli knew it was a mess herself, even though Rainie never said anything, and she was filled with despair.

Everyday, she knew that Athrun came in an attempt to see her, but her bodyguards refused to admit him in, in case the rumours and current evidence were true. She didn't bother correcting them so they would let him in, something wanted toknow he was there, but then most of her didn't want to let him see the state she was in.

She didn't want him to see her in a sorry state anyway, and her heart was filled with a fierce pride as she felt her way around and walked with feeling for corners and steps. She had memorised the number of steps in every place that belonged to her house and the office.

She didn't care that she was cooping herself in the same place every day; she never wanted to venture out of the only place familiar to her anymore. She hated herself immensely when she admitted that she was afraid to go out into a world she couldn't' see anymore.

Then one day, she heard him come into the drawing room, and she paused her writing and shifted her head towards him while he walked and sat next to her. She breathed deeply and recognised his scent and asked emotionlessly, "Who let you in?"

"Rainie," she head him say softly, and she could sense he was very near her and stiffened.

Her pen was poised, ready in her hands, but she couldn't continue writing and sat with her eyes closed like it had been for quite sometime.

Athrun could see she was frightened although she was trying to look composed and he said in a low, soft voice, "You're wearing your green dress again."

"Yes," she answered awkwardly, slowly putting down the pen near her so she could feel for it again where she knew it would be close by, "Rainie helped me with it this morning."

He sat next to her in silence while she placed her hands nervously in her lap and she asked hesitantly, "Why did you come?"

Shifting slightly, then doing the same to her so that she was facing him directly even with her eyes closed, he said firmly, "Marry me."

Her lips flew apart in shock and he could see her eyebrows knit together fiercely as she stammered, although her expression was fierce "You've lost your mind!"

"No I haven't," he uttered obstinately, then repeated again, "I said, marry me."

And when he tried to haul her left hand to him as if he was prepared to slid the ring on without her consent or not,she struggled blindly and managed to snatch her hand back from an iron grip she could feel but couldn't see.

"I won't," she said, sounding a little petulant and proud as she held her head high while her eyelids remained tightly closed.

He slid a hand on her cheek and pulled their faces closer, he could feel her ragged breath and was sure she could feel him breathing too, although it wasn't shaky like hers.

"You will," he said evenly, not caring that she was struggling to get away.

"I don't want to!" she cried, pushing him off but missing and pushing some part of the wall and blushing at her blinded attempts in anger and frustration. Her efforts to push him away resulted in her getting more entagled in his arms, and she cursed, not for the first time, that her eyes were closed.

"Why not?" he enunciated coldly, still holding her tightly. She knew he was staring at her, she could feel it, and her cheeks burned.

"Because I don't need you to say we're getting married just to make the world realise you're innocent in this case, since it's well known all over that people in love don't just set bombs to kill their other halves! Because I don't need your sympathy anyway! Because I know getting married now will help us out of the mess we're currently in! Because I don't want to burden you! Because I can't see how you're looking at me when you ask me to marry you!" she cried out in a rush.

He gazed at her lovely face that showed the fierceness, pride and spirit he had not known he had loved until late in the war when he had met her again in the Archangel, and said stubbornly, "I wanted you to marry me two years ago when I gave you the ring, and I would have asked you that night at the beach if the explosion hadn't happened. Why does it make it any different now?"

She was silent for a few seconds, and then she spoke, steadying her voice and readying herself.

"Because Kira can prove the bomb wasn't set up by you by showing the report he churned out when you appear on international channels tomorrow to prove you're innocent! Because I can't see you or anything with my own two eyes anymore!" she said dispassionately.

Athrun slowly let go of her and stared into space for a while before he said anything.

"I know Kira can prove that," he murmured quietly, "He called me a few days ago and said to get ready to explain everything. I know he can prove it with the sample he stole. But doesn't that show that I don't need to marry you just to strengthen my case and save my skin to get cover to prove I'm innocent? Doesn't that show I need you but not to prove my innocence?"

"Yes,' she choked out, "but couldn't you wait until everything has blown over first? I'm blind for Pete's sake, I can't go and be with someone the world has their eyes on!"

Her eyes were leaking again even though she hated to feel the wetness cascading over her cheeks and felt even more terrible as she felt the rough pads of his fingers gently brush them away, and then some part of her recognised his lips on her forehead after he rushed away her fringe and heard him whispering, "Will you trust me?"

She wanted to say no to drive him away so she wouldn't burden him and he wouldn't be able to see her blinded like that for the rest of his life, then maybe he'd go back to wherever he came from and find someone else to suit him better so that she could just have a heartbreak once and for all, then get on with what she had left. But she knew somewhere that couldn't refuse and lie to him. It was obvious then, the fact that he knew he could influence her so much into agreeing to most of anything he said.

So she let him kiss her and when he broke it, she bit her lip until she drew blood after that, choking back sobs as she pulled away. She felt him letting go of her and felt cold as the distance between them expanded, then she felt a release of the pressure on the couch they had been sitting on as she heard him get up and leave her facing where he had been, frozen with her hands still and limp in her lap.

Then he was gone, and she hated herself for letting go of him, but it was over and it was done.

* * *

Author's note:

Alright, this is not the end, thank god it isn't, or I'll be another Fukada who I absolutely abhor. His whishy-washiness makes ASUCAGA fans want to cry sometimes,don't they now? Please continue to R&R&R, make my day.


	27. Chapter 27

Disclaimer: No, I don't own GS/GSD, but it was fun trying to mess around with it anyway.R&R&R.

* * *

Chapter 27

The next day, the PLANT embassy in ORB was a beehive of activity. In the midst of all the madness, Athrun sat still, what he had prepared to say already burned into his retina after countless rehearsals on his own part. Kira who had flown in the night before was calmly sipping a glass of water, Tori silently standing on his shoulder. He knew Kira controlled the jetlag by not saying anything at all to preserve his energy. His violet eyes were thinly concealing a very disturbing force, and Athrun knew he was desperate too.

He gazed at a cameraman wheeling in the main camera to be used for the official statement he was about to issue. Somebody was barking orders and saying something he couldn't hear. He didn't bother listening out for it anyway.

Lacus was allowing a make-up artist to brush her long hair in the corner. She had flown in with Kira too to give them both support and to step in and control the situation if it was necessary. But they all knew there wasn't much that she could do if they weren't careful enough and messed up too much. Everything depended on what they would say now, if anyone of them slipped,it would beover.PLANT would recall Athrun from ORB, and there would be more investigations until he could be proven innocent. But they weren't unprepared,desperateness made Kira and Athrun unpredicatable, and that was going to be their trump card tonight.

Then the signals went on, and he moved swiftly to the desk and sat down, adjusting the microphone dangling fro the ceiling to aid the speech he was about to make. Kira waited at the side, looking out for the signal and the cue the crew would give.

The director was giving him a cue, and held up three fingers. As he put down each one until the light in the camera winked at him, Athrun took in a deep breath, looked directly at the cameras and said, "I am Athrun Zala, Chairman of PLANT's ETERNITY."

He continued smoothly, doling whatever he was meant to say. PLANT had approved of his statement, they supported him as always, and he suspected some of it had to do with Lacus' persuasion skills, so he trotted out on everything like he was supposed to.

"On the fifth of September about two weeks ago, I trained with the ZAFT and ORB troops in the combined bilateral military exercise with Cagalli Yula Atha, Chairman of ORB's government and Supreme Commander of ORB.

At six-thirty in the evening, we went to a beach where she had offered to treat us with dinner she had brought along. As reports have said, there was nothing in the food that made it possible for me to control her will or make her drowsy. Chairman Atha has already declared she ate nothing that night.

While I stayed near the cliffs to rest, she went into the sea. I heard a sound somewhere around the area and was wary. I called to the chairman to return since I did not feel the sound belonged in the area even though I could not recognise it myself.

A few minutes later, Chairman Atha was moving out of the sea and towards me when the distance-bomb blew and injured both of us."

Staring steadily at the screen, Athrun didn't bother mentioning that he had been worse injured than Cagalli, knowing that that would only arouse suspicion since it would look like he was trying to prove he was innocent by showing he had been worse off in the accident. People always assumed the opposite,and he knew that. He would use this to his advantage as much as he could.

That was his tactic. Tell the cold hard facts and avoid trying to show overtly that he was innocent. If people saw that he wasn't trying too hard to show he was innocent, they were more likely to believe he was innocent. It was ironic, but it history had shown more than once that the tactic worked like a charm.

Then Kira stepped into the line of the screen and spoke.When he did, his voice was clear and ringing through the room, and Athrun saw Lacus sit up straighter. Although her face was calm, her eyes were presenting worry and some hesitation.

"I am Kira Yamato, Head of Science Department of Engineering Science and Computer Technology in the University of ORB, soon to be ZAFT Commander in the combined ORB and ZAFT forces."

Kira had appeared to be sworn into ZAFT as a commander in the customary white uniform, and he had been in the limelight ever since, but he still shunned it. Athrun knew he didn't like the attention much, and frankly, Athrun understood the frustration they all went through at some time or another.

"I have evidence here that proves that the chairman of ETERNITY, Athrun Zala is innocent as he says."

The screen was diverted to a series of animated graphics Kira had prepared, even though he continued speaking and his voice was transferred over the system to act as a narration while millions over the world watched how the bomb had worked.

"What you see here is a simplified graphic example of a distance-bomb used commonly in the previous two wars, or as ZAFT and many of us nickname it, a near-far bomb. It functions as shown. If a soldier were to be standing a measured distance away from his enemy in a war with no close-range weapons to defeat his enemy, he could make use of a distance bomb to effectively kill his enemy."

"For instance," continued Kira confidently while the screen showed an animation of a soldier planting a device in the ground while an enemy was shown to be lurking nearby, "the soldier could plant the bomb first and stand on the exact location he planted it on, that is, the centre of the explosion-to-be."

"Then," he added on, "the soldier would press an activation button in his hand as shown, and the enemy in the range of the loci around the bomb would be hit while the soldier standing at the epicentre would be unscathed."

The animation showed what he had just narrated, and Athrun listened, nodding in agreement. Of course, neither of them mentioned the blinding light that would follow after the explosion since nobody except the bodyguards and doctors knew what had happened to Cagalli, and they had been sworn to silence, there just wasn't a need to mess the situation up further than it already was.

Then the screen switched back to him and Kira and Kira continued on, his voice calm and controlled but hi voice laced with the sort of sharpness that would make people sit up to listen to what he had to say.

"The question now most of us have on our minds is, did the ETERNITY chairman use the bomb we have just seen to try and kill Cagalli Yula Atha?"

Kira paused for effect as what he said whizzed through the minds of those around the world. Athrun glanced around secretly and saw that the crew were unconsciously mouthing the question to themselves.

Then Kira spoke again, and his voice was strong and firm. Lacus was staring at something beyond Kira, but her eyes weren't blank, they were sharp and very wise.

"I have evidence that he is indeed innocent as PLANT has declared. The distance-bombs commonly used by the Blue Cosmos soldiers in the First and the Second Bloody Valentine Wars all have one common trait.

They are made of metal with the gunpowder hidden inside and then coated with a wooden casing which was used to smuggle it out of factories once controlled by Blue Cosmos. The bomb itself was invented by the Blue Cosmos which knew the Natural soldiers could never win against Coordinator soldiers if they ere to battle at lose range."

He paused and lifted up a fit-sized lump of dark-coloured solid and said, "We have tested the remains of the bombs itself. The inner coating is unreactive and insoluble bauxite, or aluminium ore and the outer coating which is charred from the explosion, wood, which has been only partially burnt, due to the incomplete explosion of the bomb. If this distance-bomb had completely exploded, nothing would have been left at all, to erase evidence in the war which was the Blue Cosmos' aim.

This brings us back to the point that this bomb is a faulty dud which couldn't explode properly. This faultiness could have been truly an error of the factories, but it is common knowledge that Blue Cosmos never released any weapons that were tested to be faulty, for fear that evidence would be left behind for ZAFT and ORB to trace back to. Lord Djibril personally made sure all the weapon-producing factories never issued out bombs that would leave any trace of themselves behind to hide the fact that Blue Cosmos was still in existence.

"Now the question is, how would a faulty bomb Blue Cosmos produced land up in ORB's territory anyway?" Kira asked.

"During the second war, ORB had been invaded by ZAFT troops while some of its own troops were under Blue Cosmos' influence and used the weapons Blue Cosmos had given them to fight the ZAFT troops. " Athrun said, answering to the cue that Kira had thrown at him.

"And a hypothesis ORB's university came up with," said Kira, "was that the bomb at the very beach, which records have proven was subject to heavy fighting towards the end of the second war, was not a faulty bomb at first, simply because it was highly unlikely that Blue Cosmos would allow it to be released into the open as a faulty bomb that did not do its job properly.

Logically speaking, a bomb that might have been thrown into the sea and aimed at ZAFT's navy could have been used safely without anyone standing on it either, since it was far out in the sea where only the enemy, in this case ZAFT, was, but the troops which used it may have been killed by ZAFT troops stationed in the sky before they had a chance to activate it at all.

As for the inactivated bomb, two years of being in saltwater which contains sodium ions would have allowed aluminium oxide, which is the unreactive layer, to become reactive once more. This is because being under high pressure in the sea would allow the reactive sodium ions to displace aluminium ions from its once-stable oxide, and that's where sodium oxide, a soluble layer, would have melted away and allowed the gunpowder it held to react and explode on one side as this part of the bomb suggests."

And Kira held up the shell which was burnt only on one side and tapped it slightly. Millions all over the world watched eagerly as the part which remained intact leaked out useless gunpowder which had been wet.

"This brings us back to the fact that if a person were to try and kill another person, he wouldn't sue a faulty weapon which also left traces of it behind. Furthermore, the shell which is made of wood, has undergone a series of repeated tests in ORB's laboratories which have reconfirmed the first set of results we have receiver. Commonly used carbon-tests to place close estimates of artefacts, along with multiple radioactivity tests have dated the wood of the explosive to a tree about a hundred years old.

EA has issued a statement which proves Blue Cosmos had logged trees to produce weapons in a specified portion of the Amazon Rainforest in North America with trees averaging about a hundred-years old and older across the board.

However, EA has reconfirmed that Blue Cosmos only used wood and trees from this area that EA once allowed to use, and after the war, there have been no more attempts to log trees spanning a hundred-years old and older due to reforestation and preservation schemes set up across the forests. ZAFT has no logging businesses at all, and its trees span only from ten to eighty-nine years old as the maximum, while ORB's trees are under deforestation and prevention laws that state all trees as ORB's government property. Every tree in ORB has been accounted for. So the question is, how would a person recreate a bomb with a structure the same as those used six to four years ago with a hundred-year old tree's wood if all trees are accounted for?"

It was brilliant, Athrun thought. His friend was truly a genius in his own right, and he wouldbe indebted to Kira for the rest of his life.

The people around them were wide-eyed and shaking their heads in agreement, truly believing that he was innocent a Kira's simple logic clicked in and made sense thoroughly. It was almost unbelievable how a piece of half-exploded bomb could detract all the damning clues that seemed to point to him as the instigator of an attempted assassination.

"Moreover" Kira reinforced,, sure that he had succeeded in what he had set out to do, "The near-far bomb is designed to hurt people at a distance, and the person who might have wanted to kill someone wouldn't' have put himself at the point which would serve the most damage to himself and leave him in a two-day coma, would he now? If Chairman Zala had wanted to kill Chairman Atha, he wouldn't' have called her to him after hearing something that he felt was unsafe even though he couldn't identify what it was in the first place, would he? Chairman Zala is a coordinator with more acute senses than a Natural, and it would only be logical if he could hear the bomb activating while Chairman Atha, a Natural, would not be able to."

Everyone in the room was nodding vigorously and Athrun was sure people all over the world were doing the same too. Kira had used the trump card, saving the best pie of evidence for the last, and Athrun was sure that everything was as clear as black and white now. The cameras would probably stop winking and he would go back to Cagalli and tell her everything if she wasn't already listening to the news.

Then, Kira spoke up again, his voice suddenly bright but very sincere, a drastic change from the serious tone he had adopted just a few seconds ago.

"Lastly," he said, as firm as before, "I, not as a scientist and engineer, but as a human and Cagalli Yula Atha's twin brother, believe that a man who truly loves a girl would never attempt to make her cry, let alone try and kill her with a partially functioning bomb."

Then as millions all over the world, and the very crew in the room watching Kira speak rose up, stunned as the realisation of what Kira had hinted of hit them squarely, Athrun stood up next to Kira, who looked at him and smiled. Then looking away from the camera together, they walked from the set and away from the screen while Lacus smiled radiantly from the side.

As they walked confidently forward, the noise in the room growing from a dead silence to a deafening roar, Athrun looked at Kira and said, "Thank you."

But all his friend did was to shake his head and close his eyes briefly and then he said softly, "Go."


	28. Chapter 28

Disclaimer: As you all know, I don't own GS/GSD, and Truth is at its end.R&R&R

* * *

Chapter 28

"I'm so sorry for not trusting you!" Rainie was sobbing while Vino tried comforting her by patting her back and making her hiccup.They were like puppies, always playing together and yapping at each other, but then Athrun had heard from Lacus that Vino had lost some of his naiveness and playfulness, but that was natural since he was older. But Rainie seemed to make him a juvenile again, she would leap on him from behind and he would do backflips to amuse her and then she'd challenge him to a duel and god-knows-what happened after that. But after Cagalli had gone into the state she was in, Rainie had been distraught.

"It's alright, I mean, you don't have to worry about it," he told her for the ten-thousandth time. He wanted to strangle both of them so they'd get out of his way and stopped apologising. Kira kept smirking and Athrun wanted to murder him too.

When he had gotten back to Cagalli's estate, the bodyguards had assembled in a line and were bowing over and over again; pleading for forgiveness for not believing that eh was innocent. Athrun had only managed to keep them quiet by reassuring them that he really didn't mind, although Rainie was a little extreme, which was what she naturally was anyway. Vino had been waiting there too to se him return and thankfully had distracted Rainie long enough for Athrun to slip into the gates of the estate and charge through the doors and up the winding stairs to her drawing room where he knew she would probably be sitting in front of the television listening to the statement he had just issued.

Kira and Lacus had followed him there too, but they both halted as he placed hand on the door handle, akin to time they had allowed him to go in to see Cagalli alone, and he turned to smile at them, grateful for their support. Then he inhaled and exhaled deeply, then opened the door to go in.

As he shut the door behind him, he heard her voice say, "I knew you'd come."

Turning to her, he saw her dressed in soft pyjamas sitting on an armchair and facing the television even though her eyes were closed. The light of the screen was casting soft shadows on her face and they flickered as she turned slowly to face him, her face showing her conflict of emotions. But something in her face showed a feeling almost akin to hope, and he felt a need to take her into his arms and be selfish and never let go.

He ventured towards her in the dimly-lit room; he supposed she had told Rainie to use minimum lighting since it wouldn't really matter anyway. He walked to the switches and flipped on the brightest lighting so he could see as clearly as possible. Her head was turned in his direction and it moved upwards to face his even though she couldn't see he was looking directly down at her. She could sense his being so well that it surprise him, and he reached down and pulled her upwards so that she stood, her hands on his shoulders because she was a little shaky in standing.

Then he kissed her forehead while holding her possesively and she struggled to get free but he simply threw her against the wall behind her and pressed her there while she resisted and managed to make out the words, "Let me go," which was quite a feat in itself since he was still kissing her and she could barely speak since her lips were no longer in that mode to function.

"No," Athrun muttered, and then he gripped tightly onto her arm and she cried out in shock.He supposed she would be startled since she couldn't see, but he didn't speak and continued untilshe began to stop resisting wildly and thrashing madly about. Eventually, she had wrapped her arms around him to regain her balance and he knew it was time.

"Step towards me," he commanded, and she scowled, although she didn't know how adorable she looked and muttered irratatedly, "Just because the whole world's your biggest fan again doesn't mean you can order me around, Chairman."

But she still stepped towards him when he guided her slightly, and he pulled her tighter to him and stroked her face.

"I heard why you refused to go for the operation," he commented in a low voice, and she flinched a little and said, "I don't need it."

He didn't bother arguing with her, he knew all about its risks and what it could do if it went wrong. So he pressed her closer to him and held his silence.

Cagalli's hands were now sliding slowly across his chest and she turned up her face to his and said softly, "What is it?"

He looked at her and asked, "Do you trust me?"

She wanted to turn her head away but a hand from her waist flew to her head so she was still facing him even though she couldn't see him. Again, she was thrust into conflict, and if she chose to say no, he might turn and leave because she would be lying through her teeth to him. And the truth was that she trusted him more than she trusted herself at times, and then she knew she would always be subject to his will.

"Yes," she replied quietly, and in the darkness she was shrouded in, she saw hope.

Then she heard him stoop down slightly and felt his lips on hers. She didn't pull away this time, and she couldn't either.He wouldn't have let her, and she didn't want to either.

Then he pulled away with some regret that she could somehow sense and he kissed her eyelids, one at a time. She was suddenly fearful and tried to struggle and break away, but he was holding her close and saying, "You said you trusted me."

She felt his lips on her again and then suddenly, his fingers which had been on her waist and on her cheek were placed above her eye sockets and on her cheekbones and she realised, horrified, what he was about to do. The doctors had tried it,but Cagalli had remembered the light and their efforts had been futile.

She would have pulled away and tried to run, and he was kissing her while she struggled and kicked and tried to scratch him to get away, but his second fingers and his thumbs, firmly planted on her cheekbones and the region above her eye sockets started stretching her eyelids open. She screamed in fear and a little pain as her eyelids, used to being shut for so long, were forced open, but she couldn't scream because he was kissing her again.

Athrun saw her exposed eye whites as her eyelids were successfully opened and he wasn't frightened or horrified but broke the kiss like he had planned to and said urgently, "Look at me.do it, Cagalli!"

And then the eye whites were rolling back down and up confusedly as she tried to follow his instructions and try to look for him. She couldn't see him in the darkness she had already been used to.

In her head, she was seeing familiar and strangely comfortable pitch darkness and searching in her memory of hat he looked like and then she remembered his face and the warmth he held in it as he hugged her on the Archangel before leaving for Messiah.

And she remembered the way he had smiled when she had told him that she couldn't be anything but herself when she was with him.

Something in her stirred and she was encapsulating all his features and she thought she saw something green in the darkness flickering for a second as her eyes rolled back and forth.

And suddenly he was seeing her amber eyes, filled with some fear and apprehension peering back at him and tears welling up and rushing out without her meaning to cry as she regained her sight. And then light flooded into her eyes again and she was glad he had switched on all the lights when he came into the room.

Then he was laughing while she wept uncontrollably and allowed him to crush her in a bear hug while her pyjamas became effectively rumpled to a mess. Her eyes were still not accustomed to the light and they blinked, but he simply hugged her more and kissed her over and over again.

By the time Kira and Lacus came back into the room to see both of them, Cagalli was sitting on his lap and saying bashfully to Lacus and her twin, "Umm, he came in fixed my eyes, so uh..."

And Athrun shut her up neatly by simply kissing her in front of Kira and Lacus while they oggled and Cagalli screeched and tried to get away so she would be spared the embarrassment. But she was overall, unsucessful.

And Lacus lost her calm and unruffled composure and was actually screaming in excitement as Kira rushed over with her and was enveloping all of them into a tight embrace and cheering as had never done before.

When they all broke for air, Cagalli looked at Athrun and mouthed, "thank you" because she could feel tightness in her nose and there was a lump in her throat. But he didn't say anything, and he just held her closer to him,and she realised with a rush of joy, that he wouldn't let go so soon.She wanted to stay like that forever.

He turned to look at her, a smile which was a little sly on his handsome face and said bluntly, "You have to give me something in return."

Something about the way he was looking towards her frightened her a bit, although she tried to remain calm and thought of the nearest, most logical guess of what she could do to repay him.

Subsequently, Cagalli looked at him and bit her lip because she couldn't figure out which track he was headed on and said, "Umm, dinner, my treat?"

"That's not enough!" Kira cried indignantly by the side,but then Lacus shushed him and they peered excitedly like they were watching some movie of some sort. Damn them,Cagalli thought furiously as Athrun began to smile more obviously.

And he finally laughed and pulled her closer, then fumbled in his pocket the way he had done two years ago and produced a silver ring with a ruby encased by the silver and slipped it on her finger. The familiarity of the cool metal turning warm because of the contact with her skin made her remember the way he had kissed her before he had left for PLANT. They had been fools then. She wanted to take it off to tell him that he may have been making a mistake, but he smiled again and enunciated clearly, "I don't need dinner on you. I just want-,"

"Two dinners on me?" she said weakly for lack of better options.

"No," he said softly, looking straight into her startled eyes, "Your hand in marriage."


	29. Epilogue

Epilogue

The bells kept ringing outside the church with the same repetitive tune. If they kept it up, she would use the garter under her gown Lacus had forced her to put on. She'd grab it off her thigh and throw it as a boomerang to hit the bell-ringer so he'd stop that bloody racket. Cagalli never understood why they had to go ring those gargantuar bells on wedding days, it just made her ears ring painfully which she really didn't appreciate.

And then she cursed under her breath and was glad the veil she was wearing would not show that she was a bit miffed at the thousands Athrun, Lacus and Kira had invited. She knew that they had many friends and well-wishers, but surely inviting the whole ASUCAGA fan club was going too far? She didn't even know half-of them!

She knew Yzak Joule was somewhere in the middle row of the huge church, because she heard him yelp from that area when Shiho pinched his leg to make him wake up after he had dozed off while the sermon went on and on. She wished it would end soon too so she could get out of the church where thousands of eyes were on Athrun and her. She was used to being in the public's eye, he was too, just that she wasn't used to having so many watching her in something so unfamiliar to her. Well, she'd only have it once in her life, she might as well grit her teeth and go through the whole thing. They all said she was very beautiful, and she just scowled because she didn't really care.

Kira was smirking, she was positively certain of that. Almost everyone heard Yzak yelp in shock and pain, and she had to stop herself from looking over to see the little scene that was ongoing in the pews.

She tried hard not to peek at him from under her veil, strapping and handsome in his suit that was actually taken from the white ZAFT commander uniform design. There were millions outside the church cheering and throwing confetti, and she felt a little embarrassed as she realised that he was looking slyly at her too, not quite listening to what the pastor was saying. He mouthed something at her her, but she couldn't see, so she shrugged and he just grinned.

Athrun was peeking at her and thinking how beautiful she looked as a bride, not in the white dress she had worn when she had almost been forced to marry Yuna, but a cobalt-green, but almost white dress with red flowers in her hair, a veil thrown over her face. The veil was semi-transparent, so he could see how lovely she was, even though brides in general were considered to be the prettiest they had ever been in their lives.

Cagalli could sense her twin and Lacus smiling behind her, and then she heard Athrun say clearly, effectively interrupting the pastor who was droning on and on, "Sorry to interrupt, but could you just pronounce us husband and wife now?"

The church was exploding into warm laughter and the pastor chuckled and said, "Well, if it makes you happy, Chairman Zala. I now pronounce you husband and wife, you may thus kiss the bride."

She threw up her veil, flustered and quite forgetting he was supposed to do it and not her, but that wasn't the point, and she cried embarassedly, "Nobody gets through wedding like that!"

But he laughed and said, "I'm not nobody, I'm your husband now," and was already kissing her fiercely and the whole congregation was up on their feet and applauding insanely and there were whoops of approval multifold.. She could see Kira from the corner of her eye, and he was making catcalls while Lacus put two fingers in her mouth and whistled. A few important people turned around to look in surprise at her unpredictable actions, but Lacus merely laughed and threw confetti into the air.

Then he carried her up and out of the chapel where Kira and Lacus also ran and hopped into the car to send them off as the maid-of-honour and the best man. Lacus was wearing pink as per usual but the slight swell of Lacus' stomach could be seen only very very slightly if she hunched her back a lot. She was like a fairy-child, slim and very petite, so her pregnancy didn't show, in fact, it was barely visible.

Kira was going to be a proud father soon, and she looked at her brother in a black suit, and thought that he'd make a fine one.But Cagalli would have to make sure that he didn't spoil his children too much, Kira was so giving and generous that she was sure his children would be little devils with angel faces.

And as they moved swiftly out of the chapel to avoid the huge crowds of people cheering and throwing more confetti everywhere, Cagalli remembered something and looked down at the flowers she held in her hands. Through the noise and the roar of everyone around them,she felt Athrun take her by the waist and whisper into her ear, "Are you going to throw that for someone to catch?"

She looked at him with sparkling eyes and he had to swallow a bit as she suddenly laughed, a bright, lovely sound, and then she undid the ribbon in a swift motion and tossed all the flowers into the air where more than one person would catch hold of a stalk.

As they moved into the car and he helped her in so her train wouldn't get caught, she looked at Athrun and asked abruptly, "Did you pack your things last night?"

He glanced back at her as they sat in the backseat and answered cheerfully, "I did, I brought enough warm clothes to open a winter-wear shop in Berlin."

Cagalli laughed as Kira steered the wheel and Lacus was busy pointing out some roadblock at the side, then she said quietly, "Did you know Lacus is expecting?"

He looked at her in astonishment and said softly too so nobody would hear, "I didn't know until you told me, Girl or boy?"

Laughing at his stunned face, she mouthed, "Boy," then she squeezed his hand in excitement. He grinned at her and mouthed back, "Kira's going to have a son."

Then Kira turned to them and said loudly, "I know what you were talking about. Just to let you know, we thought we'd let you name the boy, since Lacus and I don't have anything in particular that we both like.Oh, and don't name it after some dessert like what you named the dog, I think it'd be a shock for the media."

Athrun looked steadily at her and turned to the front, then he said firmly, "Leon."

"After your mother?" Cagalli guessed, and he slipped an arm around her shoulders to pull her closer and nodded, and she hugged him and rested her head on his shoulder while he smiled and closed his eyes. The cheers and applause as they travelled echoed around and they both could hear it even through the bullet-proof windows. And suddenly, Cagalli remembered the way Yuna had forced her to smile and wave like a performing moneky, but then she looked up at Athrun and smiled only at him and for him.

"I like it," Kira said absently while he tried to manoeuver the car through the crowds,and Lacus nodded and said sweetly, "They are good at naming aren't they? I'm glad we let them choose."

"But why didn't you name the boy yourself?" Cagalli asked, puzzled. Surely they could find something they both liked?

"Oh, that," Kira answered mildly, "We thought we'd let you name our child and then we could name your children in exchange."

Eyes widening in shock, Cagalli turned to Athrun who was looking terribly calm, and then she cried anxiously, "Kids? But I don't think.."

And he cut her off and said smoothly to Kira, not quite in jest, "Get ready about six names then."

* * *

And eight years later, Kira tugged slightly at the collar of the white ZAFT commander uniform he had gotten used to and looked over at Lacus who had come to his office with Leon. But she had been held up, since all the ZAFTies, soldiers and mechanics had wanted to meet Leon and play with the adorable, loving child with messy brown hair and large blue eyes. 

Then she was excitedly running over and the child was running with her too, quite excitable his son was, really like Lacus. The boy was like her too, sweet natured and very beautiful,but oh, he couldn't sing for nuts. But that was alright, he liked to hear his mother singing and he would play with Tori and make Tori sing with his mother. The haros had become an orchestra because of his son, and Kira had to keep Leon out of his office almost the whole day.

"Athrun's on the line!" she called loudly, and he hurried over.

"Alright," he said obligingly as he took the phone and imagined Athrun Zala in a similar uniform to what he had once worn, only now they had switched roles, grinning as he heard the familiar, sonorous voice say, "It' me."

"How is Cagalli? Oh, and the twins too?" Kira inquired, looking at the beaming Lacus bouncing the brown-haired boy with her beautiful blue eyes on her knee.The boy was yelping happily to his amusement, and then Leon quietened down and asked to see something. Nobody could refuse Leon, really, so Kira absently passed it to Lacus to give to Leon.

"Fine, fine," the reply was, quite amused sounding, "But Cagalli had to yell at them for leaving their things everywhere, and they apologised and picked flowers for her, they're good boys they are but the mischief they get up to is insanity. She put those flowers in the house where she works sometimes and she's been sneezing non-stop since then."

And as they spoke, Lacus allowed Leon to take the framed photograph Kira had on his desk and she beamed proudly as he pointed with a small finger and accurately named each and everyone in the photograph. And the boy knew everyone in the photograph was smiling and would be happy for a very long time to come.

There were Leon's parents, and then his twin cousins, and of course, Athrun and Cagalli.

The End.

* * *

Sequel to Truth: Truth Be Told 


End file.
